Chapter 111 - Did you love your pet?

Trey felt a surge of warmth wash over him as he held the smaller woman close. He couldn’t care less that they were both drenched in a disgusting mess of flesh and fluids after the bloodbath that had occurred, but focused on standing next to the succubus as they swayed back and forth holding each other. He brushed his hand through her hair a couple times before noticing that one of the attackers was still alive and lying not far from where they stood with a crushed spine - paralyzed from the waist down.

“Ezdeath, mind doing me a favor?” stated Trey coolly as he let go of the girl.

“Of course master! What is it you need?”

“I’m pretty certain you’re a lot better at prying open the truth and interrogating than I am after that little experience we shared back in the tomb. Your succubus traits are rather… convincing. Would you please pick this man’s brain and see what it is they attacked us for?” Trey pointed to one of the heavily armored front line soldiers who’d been left behind - he’d been crippled, with both of his legs broken after Juila had crushed them with a swing of her stone maul. Rot also afflicted his body, with black patches of necrosis running rampant across his skin. “They started attacking us out of the blue, and I assume it was to take our belongings… but you can never be too careful.”

“On it!” Ezdeath gave Trey another brief but firm hug, the metal of her armor pressing uncomfortably against his skin, and then skipped over to the disabled warrior.

“WITCH!” hissed the man as he fought back tears and threw out a punch.

Ezdeath effortlessly caught the man’s fist and broke all of the bones in his hand by squeezing, causing him to scream before she emotionlessly grasped him by the throat with her free hand to silence him. The large bearded man began to choke and gurgle as he struggled against the much stronger succubus until he suddenly went limp as her succubus traits kicked in to seduce the unwilling man. The man grew limp as the spell took hold, unable to control himself against the urges to please the beauty on top of him.

Potent Pheromones (Trait) - Your pheromones have a mind-numbing effect on all humanoids that stay in close proximity. Their willpower heavily influences how long they can resist it, but over time the scent you give off makes them lust after you - driving them to please you.

Temptation’s Voice (Trait) - You can subtly activate this ability just by a subconscious desire to influence another person. Their willpower heavily influences how long they can resist it, but your voice has the ability to seduce other humanoids and bend them to your will.

“Now…” said the succubus sweetly as her lips came within an inch of the man’s ear. “Answer my questions… and this will all be over soon.”

***

A few gasps and muscle spasms later and the man went limp before she ripped out his jugulars with a cold stare and hastily skipped over to where Trey stood.

“All done!” said Ezdeath with a pleasant smile, licking her bloodied claws off one by one before they turned back into normal hands. “You were right - they wanted to rob us after killing us, potentially selling us as slaves in the Lawless Lands. Primarily though, it was as they said. They wanted your sword. They saw Jason and the others when they went downstairs earlier today, before the dragon appeared - and they’d been tracking us for a while for the bounty on your heads set by King Hethemon. An unfortunate choice for them.”

One final scream echoed out from far away as Atharost and Sithis made brutal work of the last enemy - and Piggy was teleported back to Trey’s side as her ability ended.

Trey shook his head sadly and then looked up to his party screen. Jason’s HP bar was halfway depleted, and two of Coctim’s sailors were all the way to zero. “Well, looks like only two of us died. Not terrible… should I try to find someone as a sacrifice so we can resurrect them?”

Trey felt guilty even saying those words. He wanted to help the men. He had fought alongside them, but if Ashe, Izumi or Jason were to die again while Rivia’s resurrection miracle was on cooldown? And who would he have to sacrifice to bring them back? He’d not thought about keeping some of those bounty hunters alive - and to his knowledge none of them were still in the land of the living. He frowned deeply and tapped his foot as he thought about what to do.

“Master, why do you hesitate? You know what the correct decision is.” Rivia prompted as they waited alongside Piggy and Ezdeath for the others to return.

Trey grimaced further. “Yeah. You’re right. I’ll bring one of Coctim’s men back…”

“WHAT!?” exclaimed Rivia as she turned again to face Trey. “No! Master, I may be a bit forward saying this… but the ones in servitude to you are to take priority! It is as you said! Do not waste such valuable efforts on lesser creatures such as those… humans…”

Trey scowled, but only momentarily after catching Napoleon giving him goofy looks from the sidelines. “What makes you think humans are so much different from you or me? We look nearly identical. Stop with the superiority complex. They were part of our group and they died fighting alongside us.”

Rivia adamantly rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips after planting the crucifix staff into the gut of a corpse nearby. “As I have said before, WE are NOTHING like humans. We are much higher up on the food chain than such lowly creatures in a variety of aspects. We ARE better than them. I do regret their deaths, but death is a common principle that everyone meets eventually.”

Ezdeath nodded in agreement with a silent smile, and Piggy remained at attention with her head down and hands clasped - still grinning from ear to ear after having felt so powerful for the first time in her life.

“Do you feel that way about Izumi and Ashe too? Ones you yourself have called friend?”

Rivia stepped over another body and pointed an accusing finger at the Vatosis Inferna, her beautiful purple features contorting with disappointment. “No. They are different. Don’t you dare tell them I said such things in reference to them! Let me ask you a question Trey. Why did you just kill that woman who ran from us? When you struck her with magic from Talsh’Noc’Un? Taen was obviously judgemental about your decision to do so.”

Trey held up his hands defensively and planted his godsword into the ground. “That is completely different-”

“How?” snapped Rivia, trying to make a point.

“She and her group attacked us unprovoked!”

“So you would consider her of less value than your friends?”

“Obviously but-”

“It is the same.” stated Rivia defiantly to fold her arms across her breasts. “Did you ever have a pet?”

“Yes…” stated Trey thoughtfully.

“Did you love your pet?”

“Definitely.”

“Would you have killed for your pet?”

Trey thought back to his dogs back on earth: Shadow and Snowflake. He thought about what he might do if they were ever to come into danger. He sighed. “Yeah. I would.”

Ezdeath chimed in - cutting into the conversation and leaning forward with a giggle. “How is that any different then?”

Ezdeath and Rivia exchanged confirmatory glances.

“So you think of Izumi, Ashe, Jason and I as… pets?” murmured Trey as he tapped his foot in thought.

Rivia frowned and quickly held up her hands while shaking her head back and forth. “NO! Not you! You are THE Vatosis Inferna, a being far surpassing even greater demons such as I. Ashe, Jason and Izumi… Well, I wouldn’t call them pets. But the notion is the same. It is simply fact that we demons are more… evolved than they are. There is nothing wrong with that, but it is the truth. Look at Ezdeath - she is stronger, faster, more intelligent, endowed with innate abilities and magics they will never have, and the list goes on. Look at Sithis, at Atharost. If I did not know your Earthborn friends personally I may consider them prey to feed on in another circumstance - just as humans do to sheep and pigs. Does that make them lesser in my eyes? No. Does it make their species lesser in my eyes? Definitely. It is not a matter of opinion Trey, it is a matter of facts and biology.”

Rivia paused to think about her next words carefully, and a warm breeze drifted through the bloodstained streets of the ruined city - lifting up Rivia’s hair and flinging it about her face. “Life is not always fair Trey. It is not your responsibility to save all of the downtrodden, the poor, the starving, the sick, or in this case the dead… creation is too vast to do so. It IS your duty to make sure the ones you care about are taken care of. Even if that means others have to suffer for it. You must make this decision and remain guilt free. In another circumstance, if you were able to save the others without endangering your ‘core group,’ I would say go right ahead and help. But you have to remain smart about your decisions or the world will run all over you.”

Trey considered her words for a time. What she was saying made sense to him, but part of him resisted the idea she was right purely based on his sense of morality. “What you're saying I agree with… for the most part anyways. I would still like you to try and think of humans as… I don’t know. Just don’t try to view them as food. Remember, I was a human once too.”

“I do believe that’s the first time you’ve admitted you AREN’T human!” Ezdeath chimed in again, laughing with the voice of an angel and swinging one of her arms around his waist to pull herself in closer. “Glad to see Rivia and I are making progress!”

***

Taen had successfully helped Bann back into health on the stone steps of the skyscraper a couple stories up, but neither he nor the ghoul had been able to find Bann’s missing arm. According to Bann, it was likely the arm wasn’t even around anymore because he had sustained some serious magic damage and felt his arm explode prior to passing out from blood loss. Taen was pretty sure he’d be able to attach a new arm from one of the corpses littering the building, but Bann had mixed feelings about doing so and told Taen he’d consider it.

Meanwhile: Izumi was healing up nicely after medical treatment had been administered - as was Claire. Jason on the other hand was still in seriously bad shape, having been afflicted with some sort of curse none of their group were familiar with. Blue and green veins stuck up all across his skin, sometimes breaking open with pus oozing out of them… only to be healed and have them come back minutes later. Ezdeath’s blood fountain, Rivia’s rejuvenation miracle, health potions and even cure disease potions just simply didn’t stay working. They only kept it at bay, and then would eventually fail from completely bringing him to the peak of health. At the very least he’d been stabilized, but he was definitely out for the count and would have to be carried if they were to move anywhere.

Trey had undergone a long discussion with Atharost, Napoleon and Sithis about what he, Rivia and Ezdeath had talked about prior to their return. The five demons unanimously voted on keeping the miracle of resurrection Rivia had for one of their core members in case of death, and Trey felt slightly less guilty after their encouragement as he walked up the stairs to bring Jason back. Even Taen had been asked about potentially turning them into ghouls, and Taen told him something along those lines as well.

“My full resurrection spell takes two weeks or more to cooldown, and my create ghoul spell is about a week.” Taen had told Trey flatly when asked about it during his tending to Bann on the stairwell. “What if one of my minions dies? I’m not a heartless guy, but we hardly even known those sailors. Better to let them stay the way they are so we don’t end up regretting it later when we really need the spells.”

Fair enough.

Trey sighed while thinking about it and eventually came back to their camp halfway up the stone skyscraper as the sun set beneath the horizon. Two small fires were lit in the stone hallway to hide the light from peering eyes outside, and the smoke had dozens of stories to travel before ever getting out. Napoleon quickly hopped up onto his lap and curled up into a ball as the two of them watched Rivia across the dark room tend to Jason’s illness. The priestess was cutting out pieces of Jason’s flesh with her sacrificial knife - the diseased parts, draining the pus that would accumulate before healing him again and dousing him in potions on top of the miracle she was continually uttering. The blonde-haired Earthborn man laying along the floor was sweating profusely in the firelight, and even though he was unconscious - he would occasionally cry out in his state of half sleep because of the pain.

Man Jason looked bad.

A thud next to Trey startled him, and his head quickly swiveled to see Juila leaning against the maul she’d planted head-first in the ground with a slick grin his way. Her pink eyes narrowed, and the huge, femininely muscular demoness knelt down to examine his face in closer detail.

“I like your eyes. Those crowns are very pretty.” Juila mused happily, playfully poking him in the forehead with one red finger and winking. “Why are you so down? Jason’s never really liked you anyways. And he’s not dead, he’ll be fine.”

He halfheartedly smiled her way, and his gaze trailed down her naked body in admiration of the change she’d undergone over the last while. She was larger than he was now, and possibly even physically stronger than him too. Probably - not possibly, and he raised an eyebrow at the thought. “You look good.”

He ignored the question, but she didn’t mind and was more than happy to talk about the power she’d acquired thanks to the evolution stone he’d given her. With a beaming, white smile - she eagerly nodded and kicked out her hooved feet to lean against the wall beside where he sat. “That’s all thanks to you, master. I must ask though, have you grown tired of me? You don’t visit me as often as you used to.”

“Excuse me? What do you mean?”

“I mean the sex.” Juila furrowed her brows underneath curved horns with a pouty frown and leaned in - almost aggressively and in a sexual way. “I don’t mind fucking your friends occasionally, Atharost and Ashe are always good lays, but you’re not as active as you were when we first met. I even heard you wanted the others to bear your children and you never once talked to me about it!”

Oh. So that’s what this was about.

Trey’s philosophy on women hadn’t changed one bit. They fell in love with what you were, not who you were, and now that he was some sort of demonic idol? No doubt it held sway over things here in these situations.

He cleared his throat and shrugged apologetically. “Doing that would mean you’d have to stop sleeping with other people - I wouldn’t want to start taking care of someone else’s kid-”

“I’ve already spoken to Atharost about it.” Juila said promptly, again scooting in closer and getting a hiss out of Napoleon when she bumped into the little imp.

“Go go away!” Napoleon said angrily, swatting at her exposed hip that was right in his face as she hovered over Trey with her breasts in his face and both hands planted against the wall. “I try sleep sleep! Idiot red woman trying take-”

Juila’s tail snaked around and swatted Napoleon across the room - sending the screeching imp off with a slur of profanities into the hallway. She grinned back down at her master and then pulled her knee up and over - straddling him playfully as Coctim and the remaining sailors nearby watched enviously. “Atharost understands how important that I not be left out of bearing the heir’s children. He can use the whores you left on the galley when we get back after our search ends…”

She leaned down, planting a kiss on his neck and moving her hips around - beginning to grind along his crotch as she felt him starting to bulge from underneath his pants.

Trey kissed her back and promptly chuckled, then set his hands on either muscular asscheek and enjoyed the show. “Fine.”

From next to where Ashe and Izumi were chatting away about Izumi’s schematics and being served hot soup beside the small fire - Ezdeath was watching with a frown. The succubus quickly blushed and turned, removing herself from the room and going further into the hall with the stairwell when he caught her looking though.

Juila momentarily stopped grinding and followed his gaze. “Ezdeath is concerned that you haven’t tried anything with her yet either, just in case you were wondering. She’s beginning to doubt herself. Why is that, by the way? That you haven’t moved on her yet? I’ve been wondering about that myself. She’s incredibly pretty and you own her now. It is unlike you.”

Trey gave off a deep sigh, a firm tug on Juila’s behind, and a shrug. “She’s intimidating.”

That drew a loud laugh from the demoness riding him, but she stifled it when she realized how loud she was being. Clearing her throat and going back to grinding, she planted another kiss along his neck and began reaching a hand into his pants. “Yeah, that I get. Perhaps you should make a move though, before she starts to get jealous.”

“I’ll add that to the list after I go to sleep and review the level ups we all had after the fight today.” Trey replied with a wink. “Now how about you let me take off these pants?”

***

“Man… I need to get stronger.” Jason looked very down as Ashe came up and gave him a friendly hug - but she quickly withdrew in disgust after getting pockets of pus all along her clothes.

Ashe patted him on the back comfortingly a few times before beginning to take her clothes off and set them aside for cleaning. “We all need to get stronger, Jason. It was a team effort. If we had been there for you when you needed us you wouldn’t have died.”

Izumi perked up and followed Ashe to hug the moping Jason. “She’s right! In fact that was completely my fault! You originally got badly hurt saving me. So it wasn’t your fault at all!”

“What a man! Saving Izumi from certain death!” laughed Ashe as Jason seemed to lighten up and smile.

Jason coughed, tilted his head, and suddenly seemed more confident in himself. “Yeah… I guess you’re right. I did do a good job getting her out didn’t I?”

“Alright… so now comes the awkward part.” Ashe brushed a hand through her long blonde strands of hair. “Are we going to bury them? Or are we bringing them back?”

Trey stiffened up as people began to look over at the two bodies of Coctim’s sailors that were laid out nearby.

“About that…” Trey said hesitantly. “The cooldown for Rivia’s miracle is still underway. We won’t be able to use it right now…”

Jason, Izumi and Ashe all looked confused at the obvious lie as disappointment crossed over the faces of Coctim, Claire and the two other sailors with them.

“What about you Taen? Is your spell still on cooldown?” asked Claire hopefully.

Taen nodded, receiving another disappointed and sad look from Claire’s group.

“They were good men…” muttered Claire. “I don’t know what I’m going to tell their families when we get back.”

“They knew the risks,” stated Coctim sourly. “We’re lucky we made it out as we have, there were many more of them than us. Bastard thieves is what they likely were.”

A lump in Trey’s throat began to grow as the guilt poured on. Ashe, Izumi and Jason all well knew that Rivia’s miracle was not on cooldown but didn’t say a word. Ashe continued to stare daggers into him as Coctim and his friends began to pick up the corpses. Together - Claire, Coctim and the two remaining sailors of their company dragged their dead friends out of the room after telling the others that they were to bury them nearby.

Once they were gone, Ashe turned abruptly to Trey. “Trey, we all know you just lied. Why would you lie?”

“I know why he lied,” interrupted Izumi with a downcast look. “I don’t agree with it though. You’re better than this Trey.”

Taen was genuinely curious at the quick exchange and continued to listen in as Trey was grilled by the other Earthborn.

“You wanted to save it for one of us didn’t you?” stated Jason quietly.

Trey didn’t say anything in response but nodded solemnly.

“I would have done the same thing if I was with my close friends,” stated Taen as he stepped up to the plate. The others looked surprised as he butted in but waited for him to continue. “If my best friends Michael and Chris were here and I was in the same situation, I would have saved the spell too. It would be different if we weren’t in Ornthas, but after seeing everything that resides here you never know when that’ll happen. If Chris and Michael were in constant danger and I was the only one capable of bringing them back, you’d better bet I’d hold onto those spells too. The cooldown is way too long to play around with. I don’t like it either when thinking about it, but Trey chose correctly.”

Trey again looked on without saying anything for a short time but eventually gave a smile of thanks to Taen’s direction. He then spoke up. “The three of you can hate me all you want. Maybe I am being selfish. But I discussed this in detail with Atharost, Sithis and Ezdeath before deciding on it myself. They all agree, so I believe if this were put to a vote like I know you’re going to suggest - it would still be a 6 to 5 vote. This decision will not change.”

“You too Sithis!?” exclaimed Izumi in bewilderment. Sithis was often the voice of reason and she had been certain he’d side with her.

The devil nodded. “They are far too weak to continually bring them back. I was not going to mention it, but now I think I should make my thoughts on the subject clear. They are baggage. Yes I appreciate the notion that they’d want to help us, but they are far too weak to remain here in the deadlands. They stick with us out of greed, or at least their leader Coctim does. It is a fool’s errand. We offered to escort them back to their ship and they refused. If anyone is to blame for their deaths, it is that man Coctim.”

Izumi was about to protest but before she could, Atharost held up a hand to interject. “Trey was uncertain as to if he should bring one of them back or have Rivia hold onto the miracle. It was us - Ezdeath, Rivia, Sithis, Napoleon and I that convinced him otherwise. If you have anger over the decision, direct it towards us. But it is the logical thing to do. We do not wish to lose any of our members to save those we hardly know.”

“That’s bullshit,” spat Ashe angrily. “They have families. Where did your compassion go?”

“YOU are OUR family!” retorted Trey forcefully. Ashe took the comment to heart and let it sink in as she quieted down. Trey continued: “I felt guilty at first when coming to this conclusion, but my is made up. I’m sorry, hate me all you want but I will first and foremost put all of you as a priority before anyone else. I don’t want to lose you. Even if I felt differently, we’d have to find new people to sacrifice just to fucking do it!”

Bann and Ezdeath remained quiet as the others stared one another down but exchanged glances in the firelight of the ruin.

“Anyways. I hope that none of you mention this to Coctim or the others. I don’t want to cause unnecessary grudges.”