***The Infernal Plane of Lust***

***Isabella***

“Your little stunt drew a lot of attention,” Ex greeted us the next morning with the hottest topic that currently circulated the warband. “I’ve also heard that you already reaped the fallout of your rash actions. To be already hunted by assassins so soon after being noticed by the higher powers, that’s a feat.”

The target of Ex’s amiable greeting reacted with a satisfied smile, showing a set of impressive teeth that shone like white dragonbone. Having shown what little he felt about the attack, Amon leaned back in his chair and shot the rest of the demons at the table a questioning look.

Regarding the assassins, I had no fear for my own safety, but it couldn’t be ignored that the Alliance had sent someone after Amon, meaning that there was no guarantee that they wouldn't also go after his minions once they learned who they were.

Therefore, after our party at the inn found its conclusion, we decided to relocate to the warband’s headquarters for safety reasons. The next morning we met at our regular table in the canteen where Ex happened to find us.

“Apparently. And, yes, it did,” Amon replied nonchalantly and turned his attention toward his tutor. “Though, I have to ask how you learned about the attack so quickly? I don’t remember telling anyone in my group to spread the news.”

I sighed and touched Amon’s arm to stop him from giving Ex the evil eye. “I did it. The warband has to know that there are untrustworthy characters in Irkos.”

“Untrustworthy?” Amon questioned with a smirk, showing me that he thought nothing much of me spreading the news to the warband as a whole.

“You know what I meant. Collaborators.” I rolled my eyes. “It goes without question that there are many ‘untrustworthy’ characters in any demon settlement, but it is noteworthy that there are people here who are working directly for the allied three. My mother will be interested to know that since the settlement is so close to our ancestral home.”

Amon grumbled and his expression turned disinterested as soon as the discussion touched politics.

I've already known him for long enough to know that he couldn’t be bothered less by social problems. His solution for most conflicts with others of his kind was violence if they were weaker, and running away if they were stronger.

It was a very basic way of dealing with the world, but up until now, it worked for him well enough.

That much I had to admit even if it went against my own sensibilities. Murdering your way through the Infernum had as many downsides as it had upsides, and more often than not, you found yourself wishing that you hadn’t sent demon X for respawn when a few years later down the road you found yourself at X’s mercy.

It didn't help that all demons had a long memory by nature.

There was a short moment of silence while nobody knew what to say. Amon’s attention was somewhere in the distance, while his minions ate their meals. Ex only stood there, apparently having said his piece without any need for further explanations.

“I think that I will retreat back to my workshop…” Amon’s attention returned to the table. “My so-called stunt cost me a few of my things, and I will have to restock and craft some more equipment before I am ready for what’s apparently to come.”

Ex’s head turned and he regarded Amon with his reflective, insectoid eyes. “Make sure to deliver good work for your own sake, and don’t forget some of those sticks for the warband. Ebandon has warned me that our excellent support-services might bring us another deployment soon enough, maybe even with Khorne himself.”

Amon nodded and got up from his chair, retreating with long, hurried steps which made it clear that he couldn’t get to his workshop fast enough. Ex himself nodded in approval and went his merry way, leaving me at the table with the rest of Amon’s group of misfits.

Meanwhile, Ex’s words had drawn attention.

“Another deployment!?” Jebril sat up straighter and frowned. “But it’s ‘that time’ soon. Should Khorne really send out his legions when there is no way of telling when the Storm Season will start?”

Right, I almost forgot about it, but the djinn was right.

The term drew Kitia’s attention. “Storm Season?”

I sighed, remembering that aside from Jebril, none of Amon’s group were natives of Lust. “The Plane of Lust has seasons. One season of abundance and growth rotates with a season of ice and storms. One season is approximately as long as five years of a mortal realm running on a standard dimensional time frame. The storms also come with magical interferences that prevent most demons from travelling. It’s a time of hardship for everyone.”

“I have heard of the storms,” Uphir commented solemnly. “Are they really as bad as the stories say? In Gluttony, people told tales that invading Lust during the Storm Season is paramount to suicide.” He looked at the ceiling, pondering. “I think they sent a legion from Baaar, once, but we never heard of it again.”

“Yeah, the storms are bad,” Jebril took over with an explanation. “They scour the landscape clean. Winds of several hundred kilometres per hour are accompanied by countless shards of ice. Some small enough to grate away at you like sandpaper, others large enough to smash you like a bug. If you are caught outside during the height of a storm without protection, it will flay the flesh off your bones. That’s why all the settlements bunker down during the storms. Lust’s ecosystem survives by digging deep into the ground or by sowing millions of almost indestructible seeds in preparation for the next Growth Season. There are very few animals that can weather the storms. Most of them are Primordial Beasts or demons with titan evolutions who could make a legion run for it.”

I gave a nod in response. “The trees from the forest that surrounds my family’s castle have a root system that reaches hundreds of metres down into the ground. They use them to store up nutrients in order to survive. Each season their leaves and branches are shredded away by the storms. If it’s a particularly harsh storm, sometimes not even their trunks survive. But once the Growth Season starts again, they sprout without fail, and within weeks we have a new forest that looks as old and verdant as the previous one.”

“I bet that makes warfare pretty much impossible during that time,” Philomena commented thoughtfully. “What happens if you are caught somewhere without an Anima Stone? Or you don’t have access to a sufficient shelter?”

The djinn pursed her lips. “Well, then you are fucked. Some settlements intentionally leave their Anima Stones unprotected in order to deal with undesirables, which is a well-known method of execution in Lust. It’s pretty much impossible to move through the storms, which means a gruesome end for anyone who is forced to respawn outside endlessly. I imagine that only the highest-ranked demons would be able to survive any length of time without shelter. And as far as teleportation goes, that’s also a no-go. Lust finds it funny to shut down the teleportation network during the storms. Our Planar Lord is kind of a bitch about that.” The djinn fidgeted and looked towards the ceiling, probably expecting Lust herself to smite her for the impertinence.

Thankfully, nothing happened. It seemed like Planar Lords weren't omniscient.

“But what do those who don’t have shelter do?” Kitia asked, somewhat perplexed. “I imagine that those who are living in the peasant quarters outside of Irkos aren’t there without a reason. At least I don’t think that the inn in which we stayed our first night would be able to weather such storms. Outside the dome, everything was built out of wood. It didn’t look very sturdy.”

Jebril gave her friend a belittling look. “The shelters outside the dome weren’t made to last. The storms clean them away each season, together with those who were too stupid to arrange their own survival. Once the storms are over, Irkos has to be rebuilt. The regrowing forest provides more than enough materials. There won't be much left, aside from the city wall and the dome. Though, I must say that it will be the first time this season that I get to stay inside the dome with a warband. That’s one problem off my shoulders.”

“How did you survive previously,” Kitia asked.

“I always saw to it that I arranged some ongoing contracts in the mortal realms, ensuring that I wouldn’t be here during the worst of the storms,” the djinn commented solemnly. “It’s a bitch to be with the queasy mortals for such a long time, but what can you do? I probably shouldn’t complain too much, since I often collected a lot of souls on those excursions.”

“Hah! And here I thought that Baaar was a bad place to live in. Sounds like Irkos isn’t much better either,” Kitia lamented.

Which reminded me that I knew little to nothing about Amon’s followers or their lives until they met their new leader. “How was your life in Baaar, by the way?”

The icewoman shrugged. “Not good, but survivable. I began my life some few hundred years ago in one of the hatcheries around Baaar, never knew which one exactly, since the keeper held us in some pit the entire time. He was an asshole and would only throw us some random carcass every few days or so. Got a basic education out of it at least.”

She pulled down the corners of her mouth, clearly not relishing the memory. “Then my life took the turn of most demonlings when one of Ostreios’s warbands bought me in order to replenish their numbers. They furthered my education a little bit, but only enough so that I could be used as a camp follower. Also gave me some souls to elevate me to imp status.” She snickered. “Hand-sized demonlings aren’t much help as servants after all.”

I nodded, knowing her story to be one that could be applied to most demons who couldn’t rely on a powerful ancestor like my mother. It was a sad fact of our species that most types of demons simply didn’t care about their offspring. I could count myself lucky that succubi always cared about their successors. There was a difference between being able to lay one egg every thousand years and the ability to pump them out every odd month.

“Then how did you come to meet Amon?” I asked when Kitia’s tale stalled. “I thought that most camp followers stay with their respective warbands until they reach adulthood.”

She shrugged. “I wasn’t very lucky in that regard. The assholes who bought me weren’t interested in fostering new soldiers. It was easier to recruit them directly from Baaar, so they just used their imps for menial labour around the camp. It was seen as a huge reward if we were allowed some free time to take contracts from the mortal planes.”

The demoness harrumphed with displeasure. “I lived that dire existence for my first two centuries, always afraid that I wouldn’t have enough souls for the inevitable next respawn when those idiot warriors left the camp unprotected yet again. And then I ran away the first chance I got. I exploited a little loophole in my contract. Earned enough trust with the warband, so they sent me on an errand to Baaar and the warleader forgot to mention how long I can take.”

“So, essentially you decided that your little errand has to last ad infinitum?” I clarified. “Didn’t the Infernum punish you for that?”

She shook her head. “I got recruited with a written contract which wasn’t as well thought out as the warband believed. I will be fine as long as I don't run across my former warleader - if he is still alive. Me switching planes also makes meeting him even less likely. Anyway, I spent my time as one of Baaar’s sewer rats from then on. A harsh life, but a free one that allowed me to take contracts in the mortal realms as I pleased. Met the others that way. Shax for example saved me from some slimes while I was searching the corpses that were thrown out of the taverns. Our little group grew over time when Uphir, and then Philomena joined us, including Valar.”

Kitia rolled her eyes at the last name. “May the Infernum take him!”

The others, except for Jebril, raised their glasses and repeated the chant. “May the Infernum take him!”

“Take… him…” Shax added with a little delay.

Seeing that this Valar wasn’t with them now, I decided not to question further, imagining that there had been losses along the way. No need to stir up old memories.

Then Kitia continued without elaborating what exactly that had been about. “Anyways, we spent our lives without many prospects, scouring the city’s trash for valuables, and looting the battlefields around the city during the competitions until that fateful day when Amon literally came from the sky and promised us salvation. Or rather, he forced us to take it.” She chuckled. “And that’s what brought us here.”

“He came from the sky?” I asked.

“Yes,” Uphir confirmed. “His imp-evolution had wings, which was why we originally thought him to belong to some highborn household.”

“Close enough,” I chuckled, uncertain whether Amon had shared the true extent of his inheritance with his minions. They would probably freak out if they knew that he was the reincarnation of one of Gluttony’s most infamous Demon Lords.

“What about the rest of you guys?” My gaze switched towards the others at the table.

“It’s nothing noteworthy, to say the truth,” Philomena explained. “Like many imps on the streets of Baaar, Uphir, Shax, and I hail from the countless wild demonlings that swarm the wildlands around the city. We were fortunate enough to transcend beyond mere animals. I myself have some dark recollections of running with my swarm for some decades before I was caught by hunters.

“They brought us to the city where I landed on a cook’s chopping block. Griasse is her name, and she still owns one of Baaar’s most infamous Steak Houses. They serve everything there, from harpy-eggs to demonling sushi and imp soup. She was literally about to gut me when one of her imp-helpers dropped a plate in front of her. That was his last broken dish because she beheaded him right then and there. Sans a pair of helping hands, Griasse decided to recruit another temporary helper. I was given a lease of souls that bumped me up to the status of an imp and was set to cleaning duties.”

Philomena sighed. “She was like the mother I never had. A strict one though. Made a contract with me and I had a few relatively easy decades at her restaurant until I decided to set out on my own. Avoiding the chopping block had been easy enough, but I couldn’t deal with all that stress inside the kitchen. It grates at your nerves to know that one mistake and you might be on that next plate that goes out to the customer!”

Okay! Philomena definitely had a few loose horns! That Griasse lady certainly wasn't what a mother should be.

The large demoness smiled and showed us her muscles. “Who would have known that the little kitchen imp would end up as a warrior demon?”

Uphir placed a hand on Philomena’s shoulder. “Maybe a little less detail the next time? I think you got our succubus friend a little green with your grand tale.”

“Right… no. Not that it wasn't a bad story.” I cleared my throat. The reminder of the culinary tastes on other planes really hadn’t been necessary. It was enough that my mother had forced me to eat a raw egg once. Unsouled eggs and feral demonlings were one thing, but imp soup? That went a little too far for my tastes.

Imps definitely had souls. That, and they talked. It felt wrong to eat one. “I am so happy that we have more than enough food here in Lust. The Growth Season leaves us with enough to get through two Storm Seasons.”

I looked towards Uphir. “And what about you? And Shax?”

“Similar stories,” Uphir waved it off. “I also ran with one of the swarms, like Philomena. Though, I was one of the lucky demonlings who got a soul through a kill. The knowledge of a soul allowed me to see beyond a merely animalistic existence. I left the swarm and went to Baaar where I learned a few of life’s hard lessons and what it meant to be a demon. I think that I wouldn’t have made it if Shax and Kitia hadn’t picked me up. They also helped me to evolve.”

“No imp or demonling survives alone in Baaar,” Kitia added melancholically.

I looked hopefully towards Shax but realized belatedly that there probably wasn’t some grand story to get.

The huge demon grunted two words. “Swarm… too.” He nodded, as if that was enough to imagine the entire tale. Then he took a sip from the three-litre bottle which he had gotten from the kitchen staff instead of the normal glass.

“Right!” I clapped my hands, guessing that getting more details about Jada’s boyfriend would probably take more time than I was willing to invest in social studies. So, I simply applauded what little Shax had so generously shared.

“What about that thing between you and Amon,” Uphir asked suddenly. “Are you really serious about tying tails with him? I have never heard about a succubus wanting to do that. Don’t take this the wrong way, but what little I heard about your kind painted an entirely different picture. Not that I knew any succubi to begin with - you and your sister are the first. I don’t believe your evolution is a common thing in Gluttony.”

“Nor will you find many of us on other planes,” I admitted nonchalantly. “The succubus evolution is an inherited trait.” Or at least that’s close enough to the truth. I believe my mother mentioned that a succubus evolution is almost impossible to achieve by mere chance. “And most of the tales you heard are true enough, although it has to be said that our men don’t die on us because we intentionally kill them. Simply put… most males are just too weak to survive our attentions.”

Uphir cleared his throat and looked from me towards Shax and then towards the door where Amon had made his exit. “So that means…”

“I am sorry to say, but I would just stick to Philomena if I were you.” Giving him the truth with bluntness was probably the best solution. Not to mention that the frowning demoness that was sitting next to Uphir looked like she had inherited a hint of Greed’s possessiveness. Uphir was a nice enough guy, but unlike Shax or Amon, Uphir definitely wasn’t succubus-mate material.