***The Infernal Plane of Lust***

***Amon***

A few days of blissful idleness followed our initiation into the warband. According to Shax, Philomena, and Uphir, they had no trouble with passing their tests.

This meant that my whole team had been accepted, but apparently it took some time to file the necessary paperwork. Either that or Ebandon intentionally delayed giving us our first mission because I used most of the free time to seclude myself inside the enchanting workshop that had been assigned to me with unusual ease.

First, they wanted more sticks. That was the simplest explanation for what was happening, even though I hardly had the intention of giving Ebandon anything more sophisticated than the stick of doom.

Ex's warning about potentially being locked up had been well received.

I wouldn’t reveal any of the knowledge that was stored away in my original soul, or what I had learned since more of the other's memories became available to me. It seemed like the stronger I got, the easier it became to deal with my rowdy soul.

“Well, yeah, that's pretty much what being a demon is all about. Get stronger and uncover more of your many souls' memories.”

Isabella's voice made me jump.

In the process, I scratched the inscription on the amulet which I was working on. The piece wasn't utterly ruined, but I would have to smooth out the mistake to correct the flow of mana. Otherwise, the item wouldn't form the spell matrix correctly.

“Isabella!” I turned around and found that the door to the workshop was open and I was certain that I had locked it. “How did you get in here? And how were you reading my mind?”

I immediately went into myself, trying to figure out whether my mental defences had been breached. Some of my souls knew techniques to protect against mind invasions, and I had tried my best to employ them, but such things were hard to learn if there was nobody to train with.

“Ah, I wanted to inform you that Ebandon finally assigned us a mission,” she replied cheerfully. “I don’t know the details yet, but Uphir went to fetch the documents.”

“And what about the fact that you just read my mind?” I asked, not finding any hint of her trespassing in my mind-space. Everything felt normal.

She sighed. “You know... sometimes I doubt my decision of betting so much on you. Have you completely forgotten about the rune which I put into your mind? If you want to keep track of me, just activate it.”

“That's mentally draining!” I replied quickly, and then I found it. The tiny, little back-door that came with the rune that Isabella had somehow planted within my soul-well. I quickly adjusted my mental defences and closed that connection for good.

“Aww...” Isabella seemed put out. “It was so funny listening to your inner ruminations.”

“You promised that the rune wouldn't do anything aside from allowing me to identify you!” I accused, vividly remembering our deal.

Her eyes widened as if I had accused her of something outrageous. “I would never intentionally break a contract. The problem is that the rune is a part of me. It represents a connection between the two of us. Isn't it obvious that it could go both ways if you don’t close the door on your end?”

Then she even dared to smile wickedly at me with a slight tremble in her voice. “But- but- if you think that the contract was violated, then you may p- p- punish me.” She looked around. “But there isn't much in here, so maybe right on the floor? Or, I know, we do it standing this time!”

There was no doubt in my mind that she was playing another game of hers. I took a deep breath and started talking to myself. “Just calm down, Amon. She is a succubus, she can’t help herself. It's not like you didn't expect that there would hidden layers to any deal with other demons.”

Isabella actually looked a little sad. “You know, I am really not trying to be difficult. It's hard for me too. Being nice to others isn't something that is taught in the Infernum. And even though I have my family, the rest of the world taught me a century of distrust before...” She gestured at me. “I am really trying to make this thing between us work out.”

I frowned as I tried to understand what she attempted to convey. What Isabella had said wasn't wrong, but was she really serious with this relationship stuff which she mentioned a few days ago?

Her mood made a sudden recovery when I didn’t immediately reject her comment. “You know, if you want to train your mental defences, isn't being close to me exactly what you need?”

“I don't like where this is going.” I shook my head and turned back to the workbench in order to pack away my stuff. Leaving anything behind would have been stupid. I wasn't entirely sure how competent the other enchanters in the guild were, but my memory told me that even the scraps of an enchanter’s work could give others a solid hint at how his creations functioned.

Isabella helped by handing me some of the tools I had used. “Amon.”

“Yes?”

“I am in again.”

I stopped and concentrated on my mental defence, only to find that she had wriggled her influence through a little crack. “How are you doing this so easily?”

“Sixty years of training,” she replied without mercy. “But you are already better than I was when my mother started teaching me. It's only a question of time until you catch up. The other Amon left you a very solid inheritance to draw experience from.”

I huffed and shut her out again. “I am not entirely sure whether I should really accept such a form of training.” But then again, it wasn’t like I expected her to stop. She already knew a lot about me and hadn’t yet used the information against me.

If she really had seen that much in my mind, Isabella could totally threaten to sell me out to the Lord of Baaar. I was sure that the man would love to have a word with me.

But she didn’t, and I wasn’t entirely sure if that made her claims a genuine attempt at being… honest. If so, she was probably less of a proper demon than myself.

We were interrupted when Uphir stepped through the open door. He was holding a stack of papers that looked like they had been through the wringer. “We got our first assignment! Payment is one hundred souls for each of us upon completion!”

“Just one hundred?” I asked.

The assassin in training grunted. “It’s not like they will give us the jobs with the best payment right away!”

I had to admit that the man had a point. “So, what’s our job. And why do the documents look like someone sat on them?”

Uphir looked a little embarrassed. “Ebandon gave them to Shax and… you know… big guy handling delicate things.”

I pursed my lips, trying to imagine Shax trying to handle the papers without ripping them to shreds with his huge claws and hands that could crush a mortal’s head like a ripe plum while blood and brain squeezed out from between his fingers. “He did a good job!”

“Yeah! I thought so too!” Uphir nodded and handed me the papers. “Anyway, our first mission actually looks pretty easy.”

“It may look easy, but there is always a catch! You have to watch out for every angle, even if the contract came through your own warband,” Isabella warned.

“Yeah, well…” He looked down at the crinkled paper. “It’s pretty straightforward though, and we don’t even have to leave the town for it. There is a guy called Rar’moth, kind of a tongue breaker that one, and all we have to do is to fetch him and get him to the headquarters. It also says that he stays at a bar named Demon’s Tears.”

“So it is a headhunting job,” I clarified with my interpretation of this quest. “And if this guy would be eager to come out of his own free will, the quest wouldn’t exist. My guess is that he won’t be cooperative when we get him. Or there is something or someone who will try to stop us from getting him.”

I looked to Isabella who had a better understanding of the local powers and movers.

The succubus nodded. “I can tell you that this so-called bar is not a bar at all, but actually the HQ of a warband which is going by the same name. They are a smaller group than Ebandon’s warband, but nonetheless recognized among the powerful players. Doesn’t the document say anything else? Is there a reason for ‘fetching’ this guy?”

Uphir studied the pages. “Not really… it just says that Ebandon has some unfinished employment transaction with this fellow.”

Isabella rolled her eyes and took the papers from Uphir.

She took a moment to read, but then her face lit up and she snapped her fingers. “Oh, that’s so like Ebandon. He likes to write out his contracts with difficult words. Hmm… the way I understand this is that our Rar’moth is a former member of Ebandon’s Warband who decided to terminate his contract with Ebandon one-sidedly. Now Ebandon wants him to show his face so that he can tell him what he thinks of deserters.”

“A deserter?” I asked and took the papers from her. Like all demon contracts, this legal confusion was a very wordy document of several pages that covered an endless number of what-if and what-not scenarios. The part that truly concerned me was actually not that much to read. After a few seconds of skimming over the actually relevant passages, I still couldn’t understand her conclusion. “It doesn’t say anywhere that this guy betrayed his contract.”

She took the papers back from me. “It’s all in the subtext. Ebandon makes it pretty clear that Rar’moth is a former member of the warband. It’s not explicitly written down here, but warband-101 says that you can’t be in two warbands at the same time. It would be too easy to get into a conflict of loyalties.” Isabella pouted and twirled a lock of hair around her finger. “So, how is it possible that this guy spends a lot of time at the headquarters of another warband?”

“Drinking?” Uphir asked. “Our own canteen is very stingy about such things. I would understand if he went somewhere else for that.”

“I doubt that Ebandon would send people after this guy just for getting a drink in his time off.” At least I thought so. Not that I knew our esteemed leader very well, but somehow I couldn’t imagine him running any warband for long if he was that stingy.

“Yep.” Isabella’s reply had a sarcastic undertone when she handed the documents back to Uphir. “You only spend time at a warband’s headquarters for two reasons. You are trying to hire them, or you are working for them.”

“That sounds reasonable.” Uphir looked at the papers. “But if that’s the case, then this warband won’t be pleased if we waltz in there to grab one of their people.”

I scratched my head. “This doesn’t sound like a quest for a group of newcomers. Is this some trap? If we get caught and cause some incident with the other warband, Ebandon could wash his hands of us. But I don’t see why he would want that… unless he is angry about me beating up his enchanter.”

“Now you are a touch too paranoid.” Isabella patted my upper arm. “I don’t know about this enchanter business, but if it had been a serious incident he would have informed me about it. No, this is just a test. He wants to know whether he can trust you guys and send you out into the wild to operate on your own.”

“Well, then let’s get the others and stake out this bar,” I reasoned. “There won’t be any solution if we don’t know what’s going on.”

No sooner said than done, we assembled the party and headed out to Irkos, a place which I previously categorized as a small settlement, but now knew to be a large trading hub and base for several powerful warbands thanks to spacial magic. If they worked together, the inhabitants could probably rival several legions.

Of course, given the rivalry between the warbands, such a thing would never happen.

We took the headquarter's main entrance and returned to the large dome-like structure that represented the settlement’s centre of power. Nothing had changed from when Isabella and Jada initially guided us to the warband, although I was still perplexed about the design-choice the architects had used.

“Isabella, do you know why they built it like this?” I asked.

“Built what?” the succubus replied puzzled.

“This dome-structure.” I gestured at the architecture with its stacked rings and elevators. “Isn’t it inconvenient to get around with this enormous unused space on the inside?”

She blinked and looked around as if seeing the layout of the settlement for the first time. “I think you are putting too much thought into this. It’s highly doubtful that there was anyone who intentionally ‘designed’ the central dome. Like any other demon-settlement, it simply grew to its current state throughout thousands of years.”

“Grew?” I scoffed. Nothing here was biological. It was all hard stones, metal, and bricks.

“Evolved? Changed?” She shook her hand dismissively. “However you want to call it, there is no larger plan behind the layout. I bet that someone simply built a small settlement at first and raised a defensive wall. Then others came and tore some of the structures down and built on top of what was left. Maybe the foundation of this dome is Irkos’ former outer wall. Then people build on top until they eventually closed it up to keep the weather out and others settled around it.”

I studied the different floors and noted that there were indeed slightly different design choices and architectural solutions for each storey. It hinted that they were created at different times. Each storey must have been built hundreds or thousands of years apart because demons didn’t change very quickly, so I went with another question. “Why keep the weather out? It was nice enough while we were outside.”

“It’s always nice in summer, but there are droughts in autumn, and the ice storms during the short winter can flay the flesh from adult demons. That’s why the plains around this settlement don’t offer much more than grass. The forest in which we met is actually located in a small basin where the storms don’t get that harsh. If you get caught outside, even with armour, they will never find all of your pieces! Mom once used it to punish one of my rebellious sisters. She forced her to bind to an Anima Stone which she had lying around and then she threw the entire thing together with sis out of the castle.”

I nodded and mentally wrote a note to myself: Think of some environmental protection if you decide to stay on this plane. And… Isabella’s mother is nuts. Never go to her home!

The group reached the nearby elevator station and Philomena called it by touching a few glyphs on the control panel.

“You know how to use that thing?” Uphir asked.

“I have been out a few times while you were busy with other things,” she explained. “Wanted to scout out the place.”

“You have wings, though…” Kitia pointed out. “Why would you need the elevator?”

“That’s because I joined her and showed her around.” Jebril provided the answer cheerfully. “My former group operated from here, though I am only familiar with the lower levels and the settlement around the dome. Never came up here where the warbands have their residences.”

“Why?” I asked, curious why she wouldn’t explore the dome’s upper levels.

“Because nobody in our group was very strong. All the mentionable warbands have their headquarter’s up here, which means that it is much more likely to run into someone who is several levels above you in terms of power. If you are a small rat, you don’t go to places where cats live. That’s just asking to get into trouble sooner rather than later.”

I studied the walkways with a new interest. There weren’t that many people walking around on the upper levels, so was it really that likely to run into trouble up here?

Though, Jebril wasn’t wrong if you took her point of view into account. Her perspective was one of an old demon who calculated her chances in centuries or millenia. Going up here once probably wouldn't get you into trouble. But do that everyday and she likely wouldn't have lasted a decade.

Sooner or later a bored demon would have taken notice of her if only to bully someone weaker.

Isabella punched in the address for the bar which we desired to visit, and this time I paid attention to how to handle the interface. To get the elevator moving, all you had to do was to enter a string of numbers that referenced to a place on the dome’s inside.

“What’s the code for our warband?” I asked. “Just in case that I clip a wing sometime.”

Philomena told me and then we were off to take a look at this so-called bar.