Chapter 31 - The Spoils of Battle

Trey woke up with his head resting in a puddle of muddy water. Rivia had left him there amidst the dirt and pig shit, and frankly he stank. His eyes took a little time adjusting to the light overhead and he could hear people shuffling around, talking, and crying… but the sounds of battle were over.

“You didn’t use your ‘Roar of the Banshee’ even once.” Atharost commented casually, eating an apple and sitting on the stone wall next to where Rivia lay battered and bruised in a kneeling position. A deep cut across her cheek was still bleeding and her right eye was swelling, marring her usually beautiful features. She kept her head down when Trey questioningly looked at her, and then he did the same to Atharost.

“I realize you probably thought it would silence the rest of us as well, but it would have helped more than hurt. They all had magic, while the guild who joined us only had some. My flying ability is a trait as well so it wouldn’t be affected by a silence. Next time, if in doubt, just use it.” Atharost continued, swallowing another bite as Trey pulled himself up out of the mud. The ifrit caught Trey’s eye and then looked down to Rivia. “Oh, are you wondering about her injuries? I took the liberty of punishing her for you because you were… unavailable. I saw how she ignored you in that first fight against the culn. I think she’ll be more compliant and willing the next round.”

Atharost hopped off the stone wall and Rivia immediately flinched, expecting another strike. Her lips quivered and she began to shake. A large single burn mark was also blistering along the back of her left hand that showed itself when she moved, and she clutched it to cover it up a second later with her eyes still downcast.

Trey sighed, taking Atharost’s offered hand and pulling himself up. He brushed off some of the mud, shook his head to rid his hair of the dirty water and looked around.

Bodies were everywhere. Of the prisoners the cultists had taken from the village, at least twenty of them were dead. Maybe more. A large pile of naked cultist bodies were stacked off to one side and the items that had been stripped from them were piled in an adjacent stack with a mage and two archers rummaging through them.

[Ancient Demon Dialect] “Oh ho! So you’re alive after all!” a muscular armored man with a deep booming voice called out as he walked over to where Atharost and Trey were standing. Trey did a double take when he realized it was the same old battlemage he’d fought with side by side earlier that day, and the man came up to give Trey a well earned handshake.

[Ancient Demon Dialect] “I thought you’d died! And how do you speak our language?” Trey commented, seriously curious and a little relieved that his battle buddy had lived after all.

The man scowled and folded his arms. [Ancient Demon Dialect] “I did die! But our priests are gifted in holy magic, some of them have the ability to resurrect. I was one of the lucky ones… we still had a couple of our number die the permanent death. Resurrection spells have long cooldowns and we couldn’t get to everyone…”

The older man glanced about sadly, head-bobbing off to an area where his dead fellows were still being collected and laid out beside some of the villager’s corpses.

“Anyways friend, we’re a demon hunter guild. As the name implies we specialize in hunting down demons and the cults that worship them, we’ve been tracking this bunch for three months!” He chuckled and clapped a hand on Atharost’s shoulder. “But by the gods we were happy to see that this one was on our side! When they started fighting you, we took the opportunity to strike and got a good lot of them before the true fighting even started! Many of the men wanted to thank you by the way. You did good work, Atharost, and you saved many of our number.”

Trey’s brows furrowed. A demon hunter guild? Why were they ok with befriending Trey and his minions then?

Atharost grinned and nodded in acceptance. “It is a first for me to be thanked by a human outside of my master. I appreciate the gesture and it was a pleasure fighting alongside you.”

“Well mannered too!” the battlemage said with a chortle. “My name is Tomrankan. What is yours, boy? The ifrit already gave me his, as did the demoness… but from what I’m told, she tried to get you killed?”

Trey shrugged as he glanced angrily at Rivia. “I’ll have a private talk with her later. Anyways my name is Trey and it’s nice to make your acquaintance.”

Tomrankan nodded and stroked his beard thoughtfully. He glanced over to the pile of loot that had been stripped off the cultists and then back to Trey. “So… You’re an infernal summoner?”

Trey nodded absentmindedly, watching the grieving families mourn their dead and feeling a little sad that he couldn’t have done more. “Yeah. I am.”

“That’s a rare class boy! Most of the ones we hunt are warlocks. The All Spirit doesn’t give that option very often! I myself am a battlemage class, if you hadn’t figured that out already. I already talked to the guild leader… she left with some of our injured while you were asleep but she told us that you were welcome to some of the gear that the cultists had.” Tomrankan put his hands on his hips. “We don’t have much use for most of it. The armor and weapons are good for us, as are the potions they had. But the trinkets and spell scrolls, if there are any, should be going to you. That demonic stuff doesn’t have any place with us, other than for study or selling purposes. We’ll also be giving you some of the coins they carried.”

Trey raised an eyebrow, definitely interested. He was certainly happy to be back in civilization and he could use any money he could get. Depending on what the items were they’d certainly help too.

“You’d just let me go? A demon hunting guild letting an infernal summoner leave?” Trey mused curiously, watching nearby soldiers strip the culn he’d killed of its ebony armor.

Tomrankan nodded with a smirk. “Of course. You really helped us out! Aside from that, if you’re a registered summoner or a registered warlock and avoid illegal activities there shouldn’t be any problems. At least… that’s how it is here in Yosemar. Other countries not so much and you’d be hanged outright for even associating with demons.”

Tomrankan snorted in irritation. “The king here is more focused on the money these cultists give him in taxes rather than the lives of his people, but that’s also why we have so much business in these lands. If the king’s men won’t protect his people, who will? That’s when we come in, and it pays handsomely. Anyways, society here may not like you much but it is a very legal occupation inside Yosemar’s borders. I… see you’re human at least. If you weren’t I’m not sure how that’d go over. Not sure why you came out of Oblivion either, but if you’re interested in staying in the area just get to the nearest city and make sure you register like all the others do. Necromancers have to do the same. It's the ones that don’t follow the rules that Yosemar has problems with. They go about murdering and sacrificing, burning down villages as you’ve seen yourself. It can become a real problem.”

Trey humphed. “Makes sense to me.”

Far off on the other side of the decimated village, the large 6 legged demon-cat that Trey had seen earlier was being beheaded. It was already a corpse so he was confused as to why the two soldiers were doing it, but Tomrankan answered that for him after he caught the gaze.

“A trophy.” Tomrankan remarked smugly, pushing a hand through his grey hair with a grin. “That bastard got 6 of us before we put it down. Tough son of a bitch. It’ll look good on a wall plaque.”

Trey chuckled and shook his head while folding his arms. “Huh. I wish I could have had the chance to force it into a contract.”

“Impossible.” Atharost rebutted without a skip in his beat. “You can’t make a contract with someone else’s minion. You would have had to get its master to trade you the minion, or he would have had to gift it to you. If you would have killed the warlock first, the cat would have disappeared… and I suppose you could have waited for it to reappear from the nether days later and try your hand then. But you wouldn’t have been able to take it during the battle.”

Trey frowned and scratched his head to think about it. Good to know… At least that meant that while he lived, his minions couldnt’ be forced into contracts by other black magic practitioners.

Motioning for Rivia to accompany them, the three men walked across the village-turned-battlefield towards the spot where soldiers were shifting through the cultist’s loot. Trey looked for Napoleon’s body as they went, but he never did end up seeing it.

“Anyone find the imp?” Trey asked curiously, still looking around. There were a lot of corpses.

“I burned it.” Atharost replied under his breath. “Didn’t want his body disrespected… it’s how we ifrit bury our own dead. We’ll see him soon enough.”

“Hopefully not!” Tomrankan sputtered. He wiped the spit from his face in embarrassment as they walked. “I am very sorry for your loss. Losing a minion can be hard, I know. I do hope that you don’t mean it though, when you say that you will be seeing him soon. No reason to go and get yourselves killed if you can help it.”

Trey and Atharost gave the man a pair of small smiles. Neither of them said a word about Trey having the Earthborn trait or what it meant for Napoleon’s reincarnation. Napoleon would be back again in 5 days, give or take, and whenever that happened Trey would summon him from the nether realm. It sucked that Naopleon had to die, go through all that pain and lose a level, but at least it wasn’t permanent… for now. That kind of death would all change the second Trey’s permanence cycle switched OFF though, and even thinking about it gave Trey the creeps considering how many times he’d died thus far.

It’d been a lot. Would have been even more if he hadn’t had help, and if the trend continued he’d be a real gonner soon enough.

Putting negative thoughts aside, they came to the piles of loot taken from the cultists. It was a treasure trove of random shit piled about. People were loading and unloading supplies in boxes, barrels and crates with horse-drawn wagons parked along the dirt road leading into town. Villagers were being fed and consoled while the guild took time to mourn with the grief stricken victims of today’s events.

When getting closer and finally coming to a stop, he saw that it wasn’t just one pile but multiple. A separate pile of bloodstained clothes, broken swords, crushed potion bottles and burned accessories were being selected out as trash. The nearest archer, a lean man who looked young but grew locks of silver hair, was busy wading through the first pile that’d been stripped off the bodies. He was sorting out the trash from the good stuff, laying anything he thought might be useful off to the side in another pile where a robust and bloodied mage was setting out the pieces one by one to inspect them. The mage would concentrate for a couple of seconds, turn to the second archer - a blonde girl who must have still been in her mid-teen years, and told her what to write down. She would then scribble it onto a parchment, place the parchment next to the item and lay it down on the ground in an organized grid of squares she’d made in the dirt.

[Human Dialect] “Morphi!” Tomrankan called out, giving the rotund mage a start.

The bald, baby-faced and hooded figure whirled around angrily. He let out a humph when he saw the old battlemage. Then he gave Trey and the two demons a rude snort of acknowledgement, but didn’t say anything to them otherwise.

[Human Dialect] “Tomrankan, I thought I told you not to scare me like that!” Morphi muttered irritably, turning back to the tiny wooden figurine of a horse he’d been examining. “What can I do for you, ya old bastard?”

[Ancient Demon Dialect] “Morphi here is our guild’s leading identifier. His level is incredibly high and he’s very skilled with the task. Legend has it that all he did was identify the local school girls back in his village until he was the ripe age of 45 and that’s how he got so good at it!”

[Ancient Demon Dialect] “I can understand you, half-whit!” Morphi snapped coldly, earning a chuckle from the male archer and a look of confusion from the teenage girl.

Tomrankan just shrugged, then exchanged grins with Trey and Atharost.

[Ancient Demon Dialect] “Then let’s keep it this way for now, they can’t speak the human tongue. You know why I’m here.”

Morphi gave them a condescending gaze and stood up, brushing himself off and putting his hands on his hips with a humph. “I don’t like the idea of giving up our hard earned valuables. I don’t like it one bit. Without us, they would have died! Aside from that we need ALL of this to pay a death fund to the families of the dead. You know the contracts - they’re damn expensive.”

Tomrankan shook his head adamantly, folding his arms and beginning to look serious. “You know what Lalia said. They helped, and without them more of our men would have died so they get a share too. She’s the boss, you just have to follow orders.”

The rotund mage scowled even more deeply and huffed. “Very well. Do they want to wait until I finish sorting this out? Or do they wish to take from the items we’ve already labeled? I’d prefer to get this over with if possible so I don’t keep fretting about what useful loot these demon scum will be taking from me.”

Trey raised an eyebrow and shook his head at Atharost when the ifrit became visibly angry.

“I’ll just take a look now and get out of your way, I won’t be long I promise.” Trey said, giving a gracious smile and a nod to Tomrankan.

He moved over to quite the selection they’d placed on the ground with the parchments scribbled along each of them, but Trey couldn’t make out what the parchments meant. He frowned, scratched his head and tried identifying them only to fail spectacularly with the first five tries. A wooden shield with a gem centered within it, a black ring with a skull, a rolled up scroll with glowing letters, a rather large battle axe, two cloth bags, glistening blue rope, a small brown book, the list went on. There were over fifty of these items already identified and he didn’t know what any of them did.

“I had guessed you couldn’t read either. Would you want some help?” Tomrankan offered with a friendly smile. “You’re allowed to pick three choice items, and we’ll give you a small amount of coin as well.”

Trey put a palm to his forehead and sighed loudly, but nodded in appreciation. “Yeah. Could you point out the ones that have anything to do with Dark, Chaos, Curse and Fire magic? Same goes for miracles…. Or really anything that you think would be useful to me. Uh… I could use some new light armor as well if you’ve got any of that. These clothes are ruined.”

He took a look at his worn leather pants and utterly destroyed cloth vest. Jesus, he was in bad shape.

The next couple of minutes were spent following Tomrankan around the grid created out of the dirt with a knife. Trey tried not to step on the carved lines and saw the blonde girl scowl at him at least twice when he failed the effort. He didn’t know why she’d organized it like this but it was densely packed and kind of ridiculous in his opinion. Meanwhile, his minions Atharost and Rivia stood in silence at the edge of the makeshift grid.

By the end of their little adventure, Tomrankan had bent over to pick up 6 different items. He bade Trey follow him a few feet out and sat down with the gear, spreading it out for Trey to have a look.

“Accept my party invite so that I can send you their information. As I’m a guild member with Morphi, I’m able to access his assessment myself and share it with people for a limited time. The paper was just for tagging it to be sold later.”

Trey paused as the notification popped up in his vision, but was momentarily distracted by the screams and wails of someone’s mother off to the left. The woman was crying relentlessly over her dead son, and Trey did his best to peel his eyes away and ignore it. He couldn’t help feeling sad for her though, if that’d been his family… oof. He didn’t know how he’d react.

“You have been invited to join Tomrankan’s party, do you accept or decline?”

He pressed the accept icon, and immediately Tomrankan’s name appeared in the top left corner of his screen with his status bars next to the name. He was a level 26 battlemage with a good amount of mana as well as HP.

“Alright, I’ll send you the list now. The scroll and book are both written in the demonic tongue, so you should be able to read it, all of the others were in the native ‘Human’ language so I left those out.” Tomrankan paused, shifting over to his own screen and tapping a few of the icons just before Trey received the notifications. “Look these over while I get you a fresh change of clothes. Yours are all bloody and torn up, we were able to scavenge some of the worthless articles for pocket change and you can have those free. I’ll bring some new sandals for the girl, hers look terrible.”

Trey glanced Rivia’s way with those words and saw that her sandals were indeed in bad shape. He hadn’t really paid much attention to them in the first place, but it was a kind gesture from the old man so Trey didn’t refuse.

Tomrankan got up with a wave and stroked his beard absentmindedly, grimacing as the sun from above pierced the clouds and blinded him for a second. Then he began to walk away and towards a large wooden crate that’d been set aside next to one of the horse-drawn wagons.

The items left in front of Trey ranged in type and rarity, leaving Trey a little perplexed and wondering which he’d want more. The first item was a teal-colored robe just like most of the cultists had been wearing, but this one differed slightly. It didn’t have an opening in the front at all, coming to an end at waist-level front-side before splitting out in either direction further down to the knees at the back. Upon further inspection: Trey noticed there were flat metal slats each about the size of a hand woven into the fabric of the material, with the sleeves coming down to his elbows. Then there was a pair of basic, brown leather pants which were in a much better state than the ones Trey had on. There was a wicked looking dagger that curved back and forth six times before coming to a long pointed tip, with the handle being a burgundy color and the actual metal of the blade itself being a basic steel. It came with a sheath and a small belt to boot. The bracelet was next, having rubies embedded into a decorated and thick copper ring. Then there was a rolled up parchment, and the small brown book Trey had seen earlier in passing.

Cultist’s Hooded Battle Robe (Light Armor)

Item Tier: (6) Uncommon

Armor: 14 physical resistance, 33 magic resistance

Bonuses: +5 mana regeneration per minute

Requirements: 8 Intelligence, 5 Wisdom, 5 Strength

Durability: 79/90

Special: None

Enchanted Leather Pants of Speed (Light Armor)

Item Tier: (6) Uncommon

Armor: 8 physical resistance, 7 magic resistance

Bonuses: +13 speed when wearing

Requirements: None

Durability: 18/22

Special: None

Dagger of Sacrifice

Item Tier: (7) Rare

Damage: 16

On Hit Effect: None

Bonuses: None

Requirements: None

Durability: 100/101

Special: Experienced gained by sacrificing to the higher powers is doubled.

Vrama’s Bracelet

Item Tier: (9) Grand

Requirements: Fire Attribute, 80 Intelligence

Durability: 200/200

Special: Enables wearer to heal 10 HP for every Fire based spell initiated

Spell Scroll: Fear

Item Tier: (7) Rare

Requirements: 9 Intelligence, Curse Attribute

Durability: 10/10

Special: Instantaneous learning of the spell ‘Fear.’ Target receives no actual damage, but is ridden with unnerving fear while this spell is channeled if the target fails to resist.

Book of Miracles: Pestilence

Item Tier: (8) Very Rare

Requirements: 13 Faith, Dark Attribute, 50 hours of fasting and devout prayer to the Dark Origin

Durability: 9/12

Special: Disease afflicts your opponent, causing rot at an accelerated rate. Very painful. Reduces HP and SP equally.

“Hey Rivia, how much faith do you have?” Trey asked aloud while pouring over the information. He wanted all of them, and it was a little hard to choose. Not too shabby of a selection.

The demoness came and knelt beside him, bowing her head before adjusting her position to sit. “My Faith stat amplification is 26.”

Trey balked at the idea. She was only level 3. Not believing her he pulled up her actual status page to look at himself, bypassing the simplified version he usually saw and came to her Faith stat which had a big 26 right next to it. Her Vitality stat was a 1, which explained the extra 2 HP she had on top of the normal 100 that humanoids seemed to have. Every single other stat point was put straight into faith. With 2 levels under her belt after the level 1 she had started at, she should only have 10 stat points to use. On top of that he realized she hadn’t put her 2 skill points into anything either.

Using her interface and shaking his head, he placed both of her skill points into the rejuvenation spell. He’d need the help healing after all.

“So you’re not lying after all. Huh. How is that possible?” Trey asked, not understanding how she would have had so much faith and not understanding how it all added up; with her Faith points correlating to her DP or Divinity Points that she could cast miracles with. “And… Tell me about this Faith Driven trait. I’m confused by the description.”

Rivia let off a single quick hatred filled look and became downcast again. She lightly huffed, grimacing with a small yelp as she accidentally brushed her burned hand against the side of her robes.

“I have been given two divinity points by the All Spirit, gifted one recently while within your care. The other Faith points I gained while in prayer over the years, with every 2 faith giving me one Divinity Point. 26 Faith gives me 13 Divinity Points, and the additional 2 awared by the All Spirit makes 15. My trait ‘Faith Driven’, which I acquired three years ago, decreases the cost of all miracles I have by 1 Divinity Point. Usually the Rejuvenation miracle would cost 2 DP, but because of my trait I only need 1 point to use it. The other miracle I have called ‘Immortal’s Infernal Blessing’ only needed one to begin with… but the long cooldown and short period of effect makes it harder to use efficiently.”

Trey looked her wounds over again. It was obvious that Atharost had beaten her rather badly, and the blistering burn looked rather nasty, but he was having a hard time feeling pity for her after she actively left him to die in a time she thought she could get away with it.

He cleared his throat with a fist to his lips. “Ahem. Rivia, what happens to minions when their masters die? Usually, I mean.”

Her brows furrowed and she anxiously looked to Atharost as if afraid he would strike her again.

“Now, Rivia. What happens?” Trey pressed, intent on getting the answer from her lips and not the ifrit’s.

“Yes, yes sorry… When the master dies the minions are set free of their contracts... Usually, anyways.” Rivia mumbled to herself. “I know that it doesn’t work like that for you… Napoleon’s coming back in a couple of days right? If you died, we’d just be sent to a nether realm to wait… right?”

Trey nodded, glad she understood her situation.

“Just making sure you know your place in life. You’re going to be my bitch for a while so you’d better clean up your act.” Trey glared at her for a couple seconds then took the little brown book of miracles containing ‘Pestilence.’ He tossed it to her and gave her the description, and as he did her eyes went wide with envy.

“Consider this an investment.” Trey remarked angrily. “Learn it as soon as you can, but piss me off again and I’ll seriously consider finding a replacement for you. Perhaps I’ll consider killing you off just out of spite. Understood?”

The young culn woman swallowed and her lips began trembling again, but she nodded hastily and clasped the book to her breasts with her good hand.

“Why haven’t you healed yourself yet?” Trey muttered, also tossing her the Dagger of Sacrifice. Again her eyes went wide with envy and she touched it, able to decipher the details for herself without much trouble. He noticed in that moment that the ‘identify’ skill didn’t show up on her simplified status page, but could tell that’s exactly what she was doing at this moment… he’d even seen the identify skill on her more detailed page and wondered why there was a difference.

“Atharost told me I had to wait for your order…” She murmured softly, still looking at the knife.

“Then do it. The knife is yours as well so take that with you when you’re done healing.” Trey glared at the woman and she thanked him before beginning to cast the Rejuvenation miracle, chanting under her breath and letting out a sigh of relief when it was all over. Her usual gorgeous features returned, the bruises disappeared, and the burns on her hand were gone. Then she strapped on the belt holding the sheath and dagger, obviously enjoying the look of it on her waist.

“Brought you back some clothes!” Tomrankan declared excitedly as he dropped a set of traveler’s pants, a linen shirt, and boots on the ground. None of them were anything spectacular, all of them being ranked ‘(4) Basic’ or ‘(3) Crude’ as an item tier, but at least they were clean. He pointed to Trey’s outfit with a happy grin. “Get rid of that garbage and change into something suitable! Something that isn’t blood stained!”

Then the old battlemage took a pair of sandals off the top of the clothes pile and handed them to Rivia. “For the lady.”

The culn woman let off a soft thanks and quickly exchanged her old ragged sandals out for the new ones, happy to see they fit well and tightening the straps going up around her shins.

Tomrankan snorted, folded his arms and turned to Trey. “I notice she’s holding that miracle book and the dagger. I’m glad you picked out some that she’d like, but aren’t you going to get something for you?”

The Grand tier item Vrama’s Bracelet would have likely been the obvious choice for most people, but it was dead last on Trey’s list. The 80 intelligence requirement meant that neither Atharost nor Napoleon could use it, and until a much higher level it’d just be a useless trinket. He needed something to help now instead of later.

That left the speedy pants, the battle robe with a decent enough defense boost and some mana regen, along with the spell scroll ‘Fear.’

The spell scroll was the most obvious choice. Napoleon already had the ‘Curse’ attribute for learning those types of spells. When he got back after respawning he’d easily be able to learn from it given the 9 intelligence stat requirement it had. It would also be a good crowd control spell and make Napoleon that much more useful. Even if the enemies didn’t run away, they’d second guess everything they did. That alone could make or break a fight.

But… that’s not the one Trey chose.

“I’ll pick the robe.” Trey pointed smugly at the armored robe and the old battlemage laughed.

“Didn’t figure you’d choose that one, it’s certainly worth a lot less than a spell scroll! But choose as ya want. Here, take these too. If you want to use it to buy anything from us before we leave tonight let me know and I’ll give you a fair price.” Tomrankan got up to hand Trey both the turquoise robe with stitched interwoven armored plates and a small purse that clanked with the sound of coins.

The old man picked up the ‘Fear’ spell scroll as well as the pants and the bracelet, turning around and placing them back on the grid where that pompous rotund mage was still identifying things at an insane rate like a madman.

Cultist’s Hooded Battle Robe (Light Armor)

Item Tier: (6) Uncommon

Armor: 14 physical resistance, 33 magic resistance

Bonuses: +5 mana regeneration per minute

Requirements: 8 Intelligence, 5 Wisdom, 5 Strength

Durability: 79/90

Special: None

Trey put the robe on, feeling how light it was. The mana regen would be great and it was very comfortable. Walking a couple steps to the left and then right proved that it wouldn’t hinder his movement either because it only came slightly past his knees and only in the back.

He really did hate the color though.

‘I like the look.’ Sithis said internally, admiring theirshared body just as Trey was. ‘But perhaps it would have been better to take the scroll. Should we buy it?”

The thought had occurred to him, and Trey gave an innocent shrug. “Perhaps...”

It was another hour before Tomranken said his goodbyes. The old man was in good spirits and translated for the villagers, he even got Trey a place to stay that night in one of the villager’s homes. Some guy named Borthome had volunteered and Tomranken had told Trey where their cabin was located before leaving with a part of the guild caravan. Some of the wagons took the bodies of their fallen, others carrying the severed heads of their enemies. More wagons following those continued on with boxes and crates of loot that they’d taken off the cultist bodies as well as from the tusked boars that’d been carrying supplies.

Tomranken in his final farewell had told Trey that if he ever needed him - to seek them out under the guild name: ‘Yostrius’ in the town of ‘Shiprenden’. Of course, Trey was completely unfamiliar with either name but he made a mental note of it and closed that chapter of his life for now.

“You should have taken the scroll. It would have made Napoleon a little more helpful.” Atharost remarked, shrugging and yawning to put an elbow on Trey’s shoulder. The taller ifrit looked down on his master, all 7 feet of demon looming over the human by a full foot.

Trey just chuckled and watched Tomranken’s wagon disappear along with the rotund mage Trey had forgotten the name of. Pulling the ‘Fear’ scroll out of a pocket Trey tossed it over to Atharost with a sly smile. The ifrit’s gaze lingered on the parchment for a time, and then he widely smiled to match Trey’s own expression.

“You thieving mongrel!” Atharost exclaimed, laughing and handing the paper back to Trey.

“The robe would have been hard to steal.” Trey remarked thoughtfully, tapping the paper against Atharost’s forehead like some sort of wise sage. “The scroll could fit in my pocket. It was an easy decision. Are you ready to go meet our hosts?”

Atharost frowned immediately, looking over the devastation of the village where the locals were still picking up their dead and cleaning up the rubble of destroyed homes. The green Oblivion gate had closed long ago, and only a couple wagons remained for the last of the demon hunter’s guild as they handed out the last charities for the day.

“I do not like the idea of sleeping in the same room as these peasant, human rats.”

“Oh come on!” Trey exclaimed, skipping a few feet forward and whirling around to land atop a large boar carcass. “It’ll be fun! I’m SO glad I’m not in that god damned Oblivion anymore! This is GREAT!”

Most of the villagers remaining in the town’s central square shot him curious glances, some even fearful ones, but none of them bothered him. None of them even knew what he was saying, nor did he understand them. It was kind of an awkward situation, speaking completely different languages and being left to his own devices in the middle of nowhere… but fuck it. He folded his arms as he squatted out to peer at the culn he’d slain earlier across the tiny village. The demon hunters had taken the culn’s head, but the body remained.

And Trey was still hungry… not for boar, but for culn. He couldn’t understand why... but he felt drawn to the corpse like an insect to a street lamp, lured into the shade of the overhanging trees by some undecipherable want and need to eat his kill.

His… kill.

The purr from Sithis in his mind put to rest any hesitation.

“Fancy a feast?” Trey asked the other two demons just as Rivia’s stomach loudly growled. He smirked her way, jumped off the large boar and patted her cheek twice. The girl flinched each time and Trey wrapped an elbow around her neck to lead her in the direction of the demon’s corpse.

“Have you had culn before?” Trey continued curiously, stepping over another corpse and moving out of the way of two village men carrying shovels.

Rivia nodded nervously and clasped her hands in front of her. “Yes… I have. A criminal sentenced to death… I had one of his kidneys.”

“And you?” Trey asked Atharost.

The ifrit shook his head. “I’ve always thought culn were rather disgusting creatures. My family used them as slaves, as did I when I was with my tribe, but that was the extent of it.”

Trey bobbed his head excitedly. “Well it’s time you tried it.”