Derb’s eyes flew open in a panicked shock. His hand went to his neck. What happened last night had to have been a dream, right? No, he could feel the scab of where he’d been injected, the blood seeping out had dried and made a stain on his bed. He flew out of bed, pushing himself against a wall. His eyes scoured the walls in his room, making sure Connor wasn’t going to attack him again. He was nowhere to be seen, not a mark from what happened yesterday.

What had even happened? Why did Connor turn on him like that? He worried it might have been angry about being used as bait before. That was before it became this… thing. He didn't realize it’d evolve into an intelligent incubus. His eyes widened as realization dawned on him. Tiff and Hannah were still in the house! He rushed to leave his room if that fucking demon laid a single hand on his family… He was about to rush out the door until he heard a familiar sound.

Connor was under his bed, snoring like usual. Derb was still riding the anger of Connor hurting his family, unfortunately, and he flipped the bed with one hand to get at the Incubus. The crash was loud enough to wake the demon with a yelp. It looked up at his master snarling down at him, and the sight alone was enough for Connor to scream in fear. It tried scrambling away on all four but it was too late for that. Derb lunged for the legs eventually getting in a full-blown wrestling match.

He eventually got Connor into a chokehold. “What’d you do to me, asshole!?” His hold tightened, not letting Connor go. “No... nooo...” Oh, yeah. He can’t speak. “Connor, I'm ordering you to not do anything unless I tell you to.” He let go the moment the incubus nodded, it fell to the floor and didn’t move. Derb almost felt guilty about it but knew he had to make sure about Its intentions.

Derb let him go and he crumpled to the ground, hiding his head under his arm. “No… No...” Connor was trembling, his skinny body curling together to make himself even smaller. “Connor…” Derb said, reaching towards his summon with a guilty expression. Now that he calmed down he realized how silly he was being. Connor wouldn’t do something to him and continue to sleep like nothing bad happened… unless nothing bad had happened.

He patted Connor’s back, the poor demon flinching from his touch. “Look, man. I know you stabbed me in the neck, right?” It nodded. “And that’s bad, right?” It panickedly shook its head no, probably scared I meant it as a question instead of rhetorically. He sighed, putting his hand on the imp’s head. “I’m not gonna hurt you anymore, ok buddy?” All it did was keep its head lowered, obviously not taking his words to heart.

“Just, why did you do what you did? You’re free to move now, ok?” The imp… He had started referring to it as an imp again. The incubus nodded its head up and down anxiously, instantly reaching for the Collar of Derb’s shirt. He flinched back, obviously, but noticed the even greater fear on his incubus’ face. He exhaled in exhaustion, ideally, he wouldn’t have to deal with this first thing in the fucking morning.

“What do you want me to do with my shirt?” The demon only responded by inching his hands closer, finally making Derb concede. “You can’t hurt me or anything, that’s an order.” The demon furiously nodded, closing in on him immediately. Quickly small purple magic energy came from its fingers, turning into a sharp blade that cleanly cut the front of the shirt in half. Derb didn’t respond to this well, about to smack the demon for finding yet another loophole. The punishment never came once he saw what was underneath.

He walked towards a mirror, trying to get a better look. The orb was gone, no longer nestled deep into his chest. Instead, a tattoo was in its place, what seemed to be a large circle divided into three pieces, with three sceneries embellishing the inside of every opening. One was a pig, big, funny, and simple-looking. It was in plain view, standoffish against the plain grass. The next was a rabbit, fuzzy and laying amongst the flowers. Its eyes were cautious and its stance was prepared, as if ready to run at any noise.

The final one was the hardest to see, it was the main piece, beautifully and realistically drawn, but it seemed to almost blend into its surroundings. The only thing you could see stand out was the snake’s sharp gaze, the eyes themselves helping in blurring the rest of its body. It was wrapped around a tree, its eyes looking beyond what its divide allowed. It was the only one looking forward, the only one that showed intelligence.

“Support… strong… yes?” Derb just nodded, still distracted by the varying details in the tattoo. Eventually, he removed himself from the mirror, slipping the shirt off and aiming to get a new one. “Connor, don’t screw up any more of my shirts. I don’t know if they’re hard to… get or not.” He watched as Connor grabbed the torn shirt and slowly weaved magic in between the tear of the shirt. The magic slowly closed the fabric and it turned back to normal almost instantly.

“Oh, shit Connor… why didn’t you do that earlier? Good job!” He patted the back of his incubus, who seemed a lot calmer and happier now that Derb wasn’t… attacking him. The imp went towards the ruined bed, reaching for the sheets it slept in. Before he could ask what Connor was doing he watched as magic covered the whole sheet. The incubus wrapped the glowing sheet around his body and it melded to match his appearance, eventually becoming something, not unlike a toga.

“Connor… that was mine...” The imp just smiled sheepishly, lowering its head in a cheap apology. He picked up the shirt Connor had fixed, putting it on once more. He was ready to test out what had happened to him, the weird tattoo in his body had to do something right? Though… he really should read about the incubus first. Whatever he was too tired to deal with the sword today so he might as well rest up for once. Time to head to the library.

He went out the door, straight to the bookshelves that were full of information on spells and other useless knowledge. His teacher had told him to study by himself while he made the cloak. The first thing he had to do was find out anything about this stupid incubus. It had become much harder to control than before, especially since it was so much smarter than before. The faster he figured out how to control it the faster he wouldn’t have to deal with a spike to his neck.

He remembered a book his teacher had used before, a large one with a demon in the front. If that one didn’t hold a proper explanation on Connor then who knew what would. Once he made it to the large room with bookshelves he started searching, asking Connor to look for anything that could help him too. He looked around the room, a small one compared to the rest of the house. It was probably a basement before his teacher had lived here since it was underground.

He wasn’t reading any of the titles, just looking for a book with a demon on it or something. He was spending today reading less to study, but more to relax. Too much time spending training is bad for the body, and bad for the soul. Besides, there was nothing more therapeutic than looking at book covers and silently judging them. He spent a few more minutes looking before his incubus came back to him. “Master! Here!” He shoved a book into Derb’s chest, looking proud of his achievement.

The book was a blank white with a simple title, “The Demon Encyclopedia”. It was small, able to fit in his hand, but extremely thick, almost 4 inches thick. “Thank you, Connor, you can rest now.” The incubus nodded and hurried away, like a child that was scared it’d be ordered to do something again if it stayed too long. Derb sighed at the scene but put it out of his mind, there were more important things to do for now. He took a seat in one of the small stools used to get books and began scouring through the pages.

My god, the font size was unbelievably tiny… there were no pictures either… Derb closed the book once more, closing his eyes in resolute determination. This wasn’t going to be fun. He opened the book to look at everything once more. It seemed that instead of alphabetic order, the book was instead divided into groups of demons. Winged, magic, humanoid, animal, hostile, non-hostile, and finally, ranked.

The hostile and non-hostile were the biggest sections, each one littered with the rest of the groups until it all eventually became semi-understandable. Honestly, it was terrible to sift through, and it took almost two hours of searching before Derb finally found it, surprisingly in the non-hostile section. He spent so long in the hostile sections that he almost spat blood when he found it within 40 seconds of searching the non-hostile one.

Derb read the part on the incubus. It almost took up four entire pages, much bigger than most other sections on demons he’d seen so far. Skimming through he got the gist of what the demon was… gross. Apparently, the demons that weren’t summoned from the void fed on lustful actions, whether it took part of them or not. They also had to eat but they would become weak and die if left alone for too long.

To feed both of their needs they usually charm people into loving them. though the effect isn’t perfect, once it takes effect it's almost impossible to get rid of. The spell turns into one of devotion for the incubus, and they can only do it to a person at a time, someone they have absolute trust for. Gross. Derb made a mental note to buy Connor a present at some point. He continued reading, wondering why the incubus was so smart.

Eventually, he found what he was looking for, when a small demon is born they get to choose their path in what they want to be in life. Most demons choose attributes like stealth or strength since that usually gets them to live longer. What the incubus choose is human intelligence, being some of the only demons with a wide support of human support and weakening spells. It is one of only seven types of demons in the small rank to choose this.

The difference between the incubus and the other support classes was that they were still technically combating classes. They only had a small arsenal of combat spells but the debuffs usually evened the playing field. Though… that was another reason they needed companions. They can’t truly be powerful without them. Most of their arsenal was buffs, after all.

Derb didn’t like that, he wasn’t sure how he felt about having a demon that could only help him out in the background, magic prowess or not. The first time he heard about the summons he assumed they’d do all the fighting while he stood and the background and scratched his butt. He only wanted the weapon on occasions where he had to run. He didn’t want to be part of the main lines, he wanted to be the corrupt general!

He closed the book after folding the page, not caring about harming the book. He slapped his head with it and leaned onto the bookshelf. This was going to be a bumpy ride.