While people normally fear or at least are very suspicious of demons, soldiers of the empire have rather good reason to approve of us. Instead of having to fight and die in suicidal attacks, they have summoned demons to do the hard parts. And many of the immortal demons are quite happy to have a license to kill, maim and massacre to their hearts content in the mortal world. The sentiment is shared by Celica, who has clearly gotten over her apprehensions of dwarves.

"Lil' buggers~, just you wait~!"

She's evidently going to fight in her modified maid uniform, which really came to like. I myself am partially protected by my dire wolf armor and the small ornamental breastplate. It has rather obvious openings, but this is likely the most I can do without damaging my succubus credibility. Here's hoping it'll serve to distract dwarves as well as it does the imperial soldiers.

We have arrived to the valley where the mountain housing the fortress of dwarves is located. According to the map I nicked, it is called Hyytäväinen in Dwarvish, which someone has helpfully translated with a scribbled line as '= fucking cold'. It certainly lives up to this description: a constant arctic wind flows through the valley, making it colder than it has any right to be. It's a bare and mirthless place of cold rocks, yellowish withered grass, and (ironically) shrubs of dwarf birch.

The dwarves seem content to let imperials to freeze their toes off on the desolate surface while they themselves hole in their warm tunnels. Only signs of dwarf presence are the entrance to the fortress - a small area protected by an outer wall - and the trail leading to it.

As demonologists summon the demons, I notice there are less of them than back in the war with elves. I assume it's because the fallen ones still haven't reformed. The number of demons the empire has contracts with is limited to those under single demon lord, namely Antamat-too-long-to-remember, whom I'm working for as well.

The horde begins approaching the Dwarven outer wall, which is only lightly manned (or is it dwarfed?); presumably they prefer to stack majority of their forces inside the tunnels where they have the most advantage. Behind the demons squadrons of imperial soldiers follow. They are there to support demons with ranged attacks and to secure any breaches gained.

The dwarves respond to the approaching army with a small force of their own. I can't quite see what they hope to accomplish with that, since I'm still far behind the other demons, with the main army. Hey, I'm a military advisor, not the forlorn hope - staying behind is okay for me. But on the other hand, I don't like having to guess what is going on. Since everyone in the army seems to know I'm a demon anyway, I decide to fly high above the battlefield to spectate. The more I know, the better after all. Celica follows right behind me.

From my vantage point I can see what's about to happen. I'm still not sure what exactly it is, but I can see it. Dwarven soldiers in peculiar lamellar gear and spiked polearms have lined in front of their wall. And they have chains holding various creatures. I really don't have a better word for them than creatures, there is no other common descriptor for these... things. Where'd they get these, Dungeon Dimensions?!

"Ooh~, they have gone all out~."

"What are... those?"

"Who knows~? Monsters~ that the dwarves have captured~ from caves?"

They release the beasts and prod them forward. They plan to counter the demons with a monster horde of their own. As the subterranean monsters run, gallop and crawl closer, I can see some of them even have tentacles. Tentacles are bad... I'm so glad I didn't join the battle.

Monsters and demons clash while imperials scramble back to keep their distance from the horrible sight. A reasonable move - they'd be hopelessly outmatched in a wild monster vs. demon melee.

I don't really have the time to spectate though. While I kept a good distance from the ground battle, the problem is that some of the monsters turned out to be flying-capable. And now one of them makes a beeline straight towards me. Does it have tentacles? Yes, of course it has tentacles.

"'Tis~ more your thing~, Ais~. See~ ya!"

Celica swoops down into the main battle and leaves me to deal with the tentacled horror thing straight from nightmares.

"Thanks a lot, Celica..."

As the thing gets closer I note it looks like an unlikely cross between octopus and zeppelin, with a bundle of tentacles, nasty beak in the middle of them, and a huge bulging abdomen. And it's going very, very intently towards me, with surprising speed. ... Why is a flying tentacle monster picking me of all possible targets?! Ugh... I decide to take initiative and charge at it. Better get this over with fast.

I fly full speed towards the octolin - short for octopus-zeppelin - with my swordstaff ready to fillet the horrid thing. It's even bigger than I thought, roughly the size of a rhino, though most of its volume is made of the zeppelin-like part. We clash like knights at jousting range and the pass is over before I know it. The first round ends indecisively: I had to abort sinking my long bladed weapon into its eye to dodge several grasping tentacles, and it failed to reach me with any of its eight appendages.

As I decelerate and turn for another attack, I see why the monster had such improbable speed. In addition to its bulging gasbag that keeps it afloat, it has an additional chamber to propel itself by ejecting hot gas. It contorts its body and directs the stream forwards, quickly decelerating and then turning around. I prepare to meet the rocket propelled octopus that gathers speed again. ... I can't believe a line like that applies to a situation I'm in.

I should have attempted to make the cannon after all... I want nowhere near this absurd thing! It's scary fast, disgusting, and I just know it'll explode if I poke it into wrong place. But I have no way to outfly this monster even if I plummet towards the ground at full speed; I'm forced to fight it to the death.

I have much less speed now, even less so relatively to the monster's. I try to dodge and cut off a tentacle or two, but the flesh is too resilient to cut even with my demonic strength. My blade gets stuck and I have to struggle to avoid losing my grasp of it as my body jerks at the sudden change in direction. Good news is that the tentacle horror I'm riding is starting to slow down, bad news is that several of said tentacles bend backwards towards me.

This is just wonderful. I can either use hellrime to turn it into frozen food and risk passing out midair or even dying final death if I miscalculated the essence I have left, or to fight normally and risk being overwhelmed by a ravenous tentacle monster.

I choose possibility of horrible mental damage over cessation of existence, and nudge the weapon to get it free. The octomonster suddenly decelerates, and I lose balance and fall forward, but the shift also frees the weapon at same time. I let myself fall below the monster, intent to stab it from blind angle, but one tentacle catches my leg and stops my movement.

I'm now hanging upside down, while the hovering monster is in process of pulling me up and reaching additional tentacles towards me. I might be imagining it, but the monster's large eyes seem to possess a disturbing glint as it creeps its tentacles down towards my torso. This is going to places I don't wish to explore, ever!

With grim determination I begin stabbing the gasbag that gives the monster its buoyancy. Will it disengage from the battle or risk rupture and falling down? However, for my all struggling I only get to find out that the monster's floating organ isn't one big gasbag, but rather filled with many smaller compartments, effectively making my efforts negligent.

"Eeeeesh...!"

A tentacle has just reached a region that should stay demilitarized!

"To hell with it all!"

I stab the volatile jet organ, which is currently shut tight. A puncture releases stream of high temperature gas in to the air... the same air that contains the gases released from the floating compartments I ruptured. Hah hahaha ahha! It's going to blow u--

The world flashes.

...

The next things I perceive are a ball of smoke above me, smell of cooked octopus, and the air friction caused by my fall towards the ground. Not to worry, I got this. I'll just use my wings that-- were burned useless by the explosion... Ah. I see. I get to experience what reforming my body in hell is like. Well, at least my kill:death ratio won't be less than one.

Everything goes dark in a moment of sharp pain as I hit the ground.

...

I wonder what exactly happens when a demon regains its form in hell. Will I just wake up when I'm fully reformed, or will I be wandering around as incorporeal spirit?

...

...

"Ais~, that was just one monster~."

"..."

"But worry not~, Celica won't stop being your big~ sis~ even if you suck at fighting~!"

I hear something very annoying and my chest feels all kinds of weird. I have a combined sensation of flaring pain being soothed by a coldness flooding in pulses from my chest. I open my eyes. Celica is kneeling beside me, reaching her upper body to look at my face from point-blank distance. Too close! I push her head out of the way.

"Mmmf! Ais~, you alright~?"

The tingly pulsating feeling is caused by my chestpiece's enchantment - the one with 'semi-corporeal magic tendrils'. It has finished pumping me full of healing magic, leaving me aching all over, but out of danger. I'd say that enchantment was worth tolerating its slightly creepy side effects.

"I'm just fine-- Eeesh!"

I dig a still twitching piece of tentacle from inside my skirt. I'm not exactly sure where the line of my tolerance nowadays goes, but I do know that siccing a flying tentacled abomination at me has crossed it and then some. Seriously, fuck the dwarves.