Petal didn’t react differently to Gilliam being in there or not, she was mentally gone and replaced with rage, it seemed.

“What happened to her?” Gilliam asked the room but clearly aimed at Ghaos.

Ghaos’s brow furrowed as he rubbed the bridge of his nose for a second. “We’re not sure but we have a theory. For a week or so after you disappeared we could care for her in your room under the logic of you returning soon, but-” Ghaos turned towards Gilliam and looked a bit worried. “-you didn’t return. In the second week Garend had found some weird documents that basically validated your slave and familiar to not be considered under protection since you were dead. Since the scryers couldn’t find you or and came up as you not existing anymore you were classified as dead...”

Gilliam wanted to comment, but sadly this kind of made sense. He had been gone for over a week and if scrying worked like he thought it did, not landing a hit but rather not having something to lock on could define a person as dead. Since he was in another world or plane of existence... however this worked, it would make sense.

Ghaos continued after a few seconds pause.

“So, with her not under your protection she was now just ‘some demon’.” He put heavy pressure on the latter part, you could almost hear the air quotes in his voice. “So he took the opportunity to attack her, sending an Earth dart through her arm. She reacted with violence and jumped on him, punching him to the ground. However she stopped herself before it got too bad and climbed off him once she had won that scuffle.”

He let out a deep sigh, foreshadowing this being the turning point. “The boy wouldn’t have it... He got to his feet and attacked again, I’m told she bit him at that point and that’s when she.. Well... turned into this-” He waved his hand, vaguely referenced to the feral Petal in chains.

“My theory is that the blood she ingested during that bite did something to her. If they can gain power from eating people like she said, the young boy might be... well.. But he is still a decent mage for his age.”

Gilliam pondered on Ghaos’ explanation and theory, she had followed his orders perfectly, only fighting to protect herself and stopping before it went too bad. The bite felt like a natural reaction for someone who might not have used many weapons. He only had her explanation for how the demon consumption thing worked, so whatever she said to them was the extent of her knowledge, though factually true she might not have understood things properly.. Or something... There was a lot of speculation here.

“When the second gate was opening, I told her that she could defend herself, but she was to try her best to not kill non-demons. So her actions are based on my orders.” Gilliam decided to clear up her actions and clear her from what happened the best he could.

Though she might be dead now had she not been allowed to defend herself, so although he’s very glad he did this, the actions still sort of fell to him if he understood how the laws on this worked.

“Not sure it’s smart to say that outside-” Ghaos commented. “-Though it was in self defence, attacking a student, the young Silverhawk specifically will cause you problems.”

Gilliam chuckled, barely audible over Petal’s rage in the narrow room.

“I doubt that’s going to matter, since I probably broke his face before I cut his arm off.”

There was not a hint of regret in that statement, in his mind all he could see was the damaged Savia.

Ghaos visibly seemed like he wanted to comment on this but stopped himself and instead changed the subject.

“Well... I suppose that is for later, not sure what we can do with her like this-” the ‘her’ in this case was Petal, further solidified as Ghaos turned back to facing her. “-But if she continues acting like this I don’t see a good future for her.”

Gilliam didn’t properly listen and rather walked closer to the chained up demon. He needed to snap her out of this but if this was indeed related to some consumed blood and related to her demon growth thing. Perhaps it’s just that her first ‘meal’ of the kind was too pure? Like an overdose on some drug?

Walking closer to her, within reach had she not been restrained Gilliam could see the place that the Earth dart had pierced her arm, it was healing nicely and was probably due to the increased natural healing the demons had.

“Petal, can you hear me?”

The only reaction he got was that she somewhat faced him more as she tried to get loose, it looked like she was going to attack him if she managed to slip the bonds.

“Petal. Calm down.” He tried to activate the command link, but it didn’t react at all.

Gilliam turned to Ghaos standing a few solid steps away at the moment.

“Ghaos, isn’t the slave mark absolute? Shouldn’t she calm down if I order her to?”

Ghaos nodded and made a hand gesture best described as ‘but however’.

“If she understands the orders you give her, they are absolute and I haven’t heard any marked slave not doing as told if it’s physically possible. However she might not be able to, if you as a slave to fly if they have no way of doing so; how can they follow the order?”

Gilliam turned back to Petal, he had a good point. There seems to be two main possibilities at the moment. Either she cannot understand his orders in her rabid rage, or she hears it but is unable to. Either case was problematic to confirm, so the next step was also hard to decide on.

Not turning away from her, Gilliam spoke loud enough that Ghaos could easily hear him.

“How was she captured?”

“At the time she had bit Garend, the fight had lasted long enough that some of my colleagues had gotten to them. A demon was attacking a student, after all, so they acted accordingly. Though this time she was not knocked out, they managed to just restrain her and teleport down here.”

Garend’s people were good, Gilliam was glad that they managed to get her down here with minimal effort, at least nobody was more hurt than needed.

“That’s good.” He somewhat spoke to himself in response to Garend.

He needed a way to snap her out of it. If their theory is correct and what she said was all there was to it regarding demon physiology, then this was a physical or mental response to the mages blood. It really was some drug-like reaction, however since a demon gets permanently empowered by that thing, going cold-turkey would most likely not have her come out of it as... Well, this could be permanent.

Had this been just narcotics then keeping her healed and waiting could work, but it’s been days, if that was the case then shouldn’t it already have worked?

This was a complicated subject, he didn’t know enough about their biology to even approach this. Thinking back to his time in the demon world, was there anything that could help him? He only really spent any time with Sirzan but he was both a mage and already in his proper senses. The other demons after him were blindly charging him and... only stopping when they got surprised or overwhelmed.

That might be it? She’s in a very, very feral state right now, so speak to her feral emotions. The most basic state that people have, or rather humans have is the Fight or Flight response. Many choose to Fight but if the enemy is scary or overwhelming enough, could he be able to trigger her Flight, or rather her fear response?

This sounded like a good idea but the more he thought about it the less he was comfortable with trying it. It would require him to hurt her, potentially bad, or give an aura of overwhelming pressure... Though this might work the more he considered it the more he thought it could just backfire. If she is lost in rage this might just put both of them in danger.

This was a problem since he didn’t properly know her, they spent like two days together and during that time he only figured out that she didn’t really have much of a life outside of servitude or being eaten or thrown away. She just wanted a better life which is why she suggested the slave ritual so easily.

Though... If this was biological, perhaps he had to consider the demon side of things and handle it as such? If he imagined this in a realistic scenario, if this had happened in the Fractured Lands and she found someone that triggered this side of her, she would most likely continue to attack in rage until she had eaten her fill. If you imagine a rabidly hungry person, give them a taste of food and then take it away. Is... is this just part of the evolution process that she was just interrupted in? Even dogs go mental in cases like that, perhaps this is some weird instinctive food defence mechanism that she’s not used to handling since it’s potentially her first time?

Though Gilliam would love to just let her eat Garend and find out, that was not exactly an option.

However, he did have his arm....

“I want to try something... But it will probably be... a bit wrong...”

His idea was simple: feed her Garend’s arm and see if that made things better. The fact that he’s feeding her might also get some reaction deep in her subconscious as well.

“It might work, or it might make it worse.” He added at the end as he really didn’t know what was going to happen. If she drew more strength from it she could perhaps break loose or just go into the much deeper end. However, perhaps it was the best they had?

“I’m not letting her go until she talks to me, test what you want without releasing her.” Ghaos allowed and commanded. It was clear that he was doing his job properly, the Battlemage commander was no pushover if it came to it.

Gilliam took this as all the validation he needed lifting his hand as he requested the ring to manifest the arm he had stored in there, from behind him it seemed like he just suddenly had a human arm in his hand that he pulled from nowhere.

He could hear the gasps of both Angela and Ghaos being horrified once they realised what was going on; Angela knew but Ghaos had to piece together about the arm he pulled out of nowhere.

Taking off the remaining clothing on the arm, he started wafting it in front of Petal like he was hinting to a dog that he had a treat. It didn't even take a moment for her to react. First she was aggressively trying to get to the arm but when Gilliam used dog-training logic in her this seemed to change.

Each time she aggressively growled towards the arm he brought it further away as he shook his head and told her a firm “No.”

When she calmed down a tiny bit he brought it closer as he ordered her “Calmly now.”

This took a few minutes back and forth but afterwards it seemed to somewhat work. She calmed down considerably, her eyes were still just a glow and she was clearly still feral, but she behaved a tiny bit more like the angry demon dog she currently acted as.

To Angela’s nausea he allowed Petal to take a bite, it was a solid chunk gone in a single swift movement, or at least as much movement as the restraint allowed her to do.

Once that was consumed he continued the process, pseudo training her like a dog to behave, things he had done to family pets before so he had a rough idea.

Though deep inside he felt conflicted. Not only was he treating her like a pet that was possessive of food or snacks, but he was currently feeding a demon the arm he cut off a human child not half an hour ago. The conflicted part was not that he was doing it, but oddly enough he was more conflicted about the fact that he didn’t feel weird doing this at all.

Deciding that this was just some weird aftereffect of the time he spent in the demon realm, that fighting for his life as he spread demons all over the place had jaded him. For now he decided to focus on Petal and handle his own issues later.

This took some time, he swapped over to speaking to her in her demonic tone without properly realising, this seemed to have a greater effect and after most of the arm was nothing more than skin and bone, with only the wrist and hand left he started talking to her. Just small sentences, mentioning her name and asking her to keep calm.

Luckily this worked, she was calming down, her eyes didn’t change but her demeanour did.

With only most of the palm and a few fingers left, she had eaten the others with some sickening crunching sounds, he tried to speak to her properly.

“Petal, are you back with us?” She seemed to react to her name, but she still didn’t respond.

Taking a step away to trigger the fear of losing her food response he tried again. “Petal, if you want this you need to speak with me.” He kept to the demon language still as it seemed to have the better response.

“I... food... want...” Though she managed to respond, it was words forced with great effort.

Stepping closer and rewarding her with a tiny nibble he repeated the process. “Good.”

Deciding that he was running out of treats, as macabre it was to call it that, he needed to hit harder. There were just two fingers and a little of the palm left.

Stepping in, crouching to get even closer he grabbed her chin and tilted her head towards his face as close as he could, he looked at her with as much of a commanding aura that he could.

“If you want the rest, properly come back to us. I have no use for a servant that’s just an animal.”

He made this sound like a threat on purpose, a part of him hated doing this but he had to act the part to get the effect he thought was needed.

She started squirming and tried to tilt her face towards the rest of the snacks, but Gilliam forced her face back to look at him, he lifted his eyebrows in an expression rudely expecting a response.

She seemed to struggle for several long seconds as Gilliam had gotten more and more aggressive in tilting her face back to his instead of towards the food.

“Last chance. What do you want to happen?” He hoped that one final push was needed.

She struggled for another few seconds, like before she wanted to face the snacks that had her this motivated but suddenly the glow in her eyes faded to the normal, still oddly glowing, eyes. The look on her face was still a bit feral and wanting food, but the look in her eyes changed.

“I... I want the rest of the arm...” She was calm and looked more like her old self, perhaps a bit more desperate than completely normal, at least she was speaking properly and looking more normal if nothing else.

This caught Gilliam off guard, when asking what she wanted he meant more if she wanted to be cast away or not, instead she did as told and replied, but about the food instead.

Lifting the remainder of the hand into her view he felt like he had to confirm once more before giving in.

“Am I right in assuming that you’re back to your proper self?” He had let up the dominating presence a lot and was talking to her like a normal person instead.

“Y... Yes... I think so.. M.. My Lord. But I still would very much like the rest of the hand.”

She seemed very, very hesitant, like she was weighing what to say and do to both prove that she was indeed mentally back, but at the same time trying her best to not let that stop her from getting the rest of the hand.

“Then, I suppose you can prove it, right?” The question was more toned as a challenge and order. Getting to his feet properly he turned to Ghaos.

“Can you release her now?”

It was not until now Gilliam properly saw the faces of the people behind him. He was holding the skeleton arm of a young human, which he had been feeding to a chained up demon for the last few minutes to the point where just bone, sinew and two fingers remained. Neither the floor nor Petal herself could be considered clean as the fresh arm had bled over both.

Ghaos grimaced, though through the grimace Gilliam was certain he could read that they were absolutely going to talk about this later.

Though he did hesitantly nod as he placed his hand on one of the many magical circles on the wall, he did something that disabled a few of the circles directly around Petal. He then proceeded with the rest of the releasing process which was just as elaborate as the first time.

Eventually Petal was back standing on her hooves, still being a good solid head shorter than Gilliam she was almost shyly fiddling with her fingers as she faced Gilliam and, in the demonic language. “Can... I have the rest of that hand... My Lord?”

She really, really wanted it, but did her best to prove that she was in control again. And it really did seem like she was.

Gilliam, not really having a plan for the arm at all before now, he just didn’t want Garend to have it reattached, gave her the treat she so much wanted.

She happily received it and was about to bite into it, noticing the face of both Angela and Ghaos, decided to turn around and eat it while facing away from them.

Internally this had Gilliam chuckle, she was definitely back to her old self and she was doing her best to not inconvenience people... All things considered.

It didn’t take long before the rest of the hand was taken care of. She looked like she wanted to place the remaining bone somewhere.

Gilliam just extended a hand towards her and was given the bone arm, missing three of its five fingers. As soon as he held it he activated the ring which in turn had the bone arm just disappear, surprising everyone in the room though surprising Petal the most.

“Good-” Gilliam started to break the awkward silence in the room as he turned to Ghaos.

“-I have a lot of things to share from my time in the Demon world, so... Could we get Petal cleaned up and gather some people?”

This was said somewhat casually almost as he just explained the weather.

“You what?” Ghaos looked at him confused. “I know you were gone for a while but... what?”

His expression was more confused than anything.

“Yep. I assume you probably want someone specific to be part of this, and I want Petal to be part of it, so unless you want her to have student blood on her face I think it might be worthwhile cleaning her up first.”

That last bit of info seemed to make it click properly for Ghaos. Gilliam did explain that he cut Garend’s arm off before so this might have put things into perspective.

Sighing deeply as he dipped his head forwards. “You turned into a commanding ass, you know that?” Ghaos didn’t sound happy about this but there was a very weak humorous undertone to it.

“You’ll understand why, now get.” This was in a clear humorous tone to further the douchebaggery a bit more. Though an ass about it he did have a good point.

He had a lot of good information about the enemy.

“Fine, stay here and I’ll get someone to.. Do things.” He sighed once again, this seemed like it was going to become a tedious day.

As Ghaos left the room, closing the door after himself, Gilliam walked over to Angela and picked up Savia again. The room was incredibly awkwardly silent for a good solid half minute before Angela broke out in a yelling question about what the hell that was!

“What do you mean?” Gilliam wondered.

Though he had a wondering tone he knew what she was referring to, but he wondered which part of the ordeal as there were many different factors here.

“What do you mean, what do I mean?! You fed your demon pet the arm of an Academy student?!” She was flustered to say the least. And rightfully so.

“Yes. That sounds about right.” He couldn't really do much but confirm it. She really did sum it up rather well.

“Oh!-” Forcefully changing the subject with the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the face he lifted Savia up to present her. She was already looking a bit better but it would take both time and more healing magic to get her completely healed.

“-This is Savia, my familiar.” The still wounded and in very bad shape creature gives her an honest smile.

“Who is white human, Master? Is it a friend?” She seemed happy and cheerful even in her condition.

“Yes, this is Angela, she’s a friend.” Gilliam replied without considering that he was speaking in whatever language that Savia speaks in.

Turning towards Petal, wanting to introduce her as well he... decided not to. Looking at the demon with human blood around her mouth and down her throat, staining her torn dress was not the best image.

“And...” Turning back to Angela with a forced smile. “That is Petal... Although I would like to have introduced her differently... For better or worse she’s my slave. She knows V’idan so you can talk to her, but this one doesn’t”

Referring to Petal when he mentioned knowing V’idan, and giving Savia a little pet like the sparrow she kind of was in his palm when referring to the one who didn’t.

Angela was somewhat taken off guard with all of this, she was in the middle of asking Gilliam the hell was going on and now there is a sudden introduction. Stuttering as she tried to figure out what sentence to start with, Gilliam was saved by the bell of sorts as Ghaos entered the room. He nodded out through the door in a hint to follow him as he left, leaving the door open.

Gilliam followed him without question and came into the office-like room outside of the holding room, there stood Jial as well as a man in his thirties, short brown hair and the physique of a greek god. He wore some very shiny and polished leather armour with what looked like metal plates in small pouches here and there. At his side was a sword and across his chest was a bandoleer of various vials of coloured liquid.

Ghaos started talking as he referred to the armoured man.

“This is Ardan, he’s going to be following you around for a while. Though mainly for show he’s also to protect both you and others should that be needed.”

Gilliam just nodded, knowing that with what has happened lately this was probably a good thing, if nothing else it could give people some peace of mind that a guard is following him.

Jial had not waited for any que, he had cast a spell on Petal as soon as they came in range, and during Ardan’s introduction Petal was cleaned up nicely.

Though as soon as Ghaos was done introducing the guard he added his own statement.

“Ledels is informed. A room is prepared for you to explain everything.”

Handing Gilliam some clothes at the end of his explanation.

Gilliam wanted to explain all of this anyway, so that was hardly an issue. He changed his clothing to get out of the bloodied pants that had some splatter from Petal’s ‘snack’ was probably a good idea, pure white pants with blood splatters didn’t exactly look nice.

Following Jial out of the basement Angela walked up beside Gilliam and warned him that she had many, many questions he had to answer later. Chuckling he said that he would do his best after the lecture he was going to have from his last few days.

The entourage got a lot of different looks, which was not hard to guess why. Gilliam had done a few things today that would warrant its share of looks, the actual demon that was in a fight with a student, flanked by not just Jial and Ghaos, but another guard and some white woman.

The group seemed to ignore it for now and rather continued to follow Jial through the main hall and into the 5th Wing, on floor one they went down the hallway and entered a door into a pretty large meeting room. It was rectangular, had a large table in the center of the room with the same shape with a bunch of chairs around. Several windows with heavy curtains currently drawn away and the same fancy wooden walls as most other rooms in the Academy.

In this room there were a lot of people, the only one except his current group that Gilliam recognized was Ledels. The others were people who looked like other teachers, based on their badge, some people dressed in nice robes but without any badges and one man who really, really stood out. He looked a bit steampunky, wearing a vest over a shirt, a somewhat long coat, some goggles with several interchangeable lenses, a bandoleer of some potions and something looking like a simplistic pistol at his hip. He had ash-grey hair with most of it being actual black, hinting that he’s ageing a bit, it was oiled backwards.

Catching himself staring at Mr. Steampunk he shook his head a bit and went back to focusing on Ledels.

After the group had entered Ghaos closed the door behind them and Ledels took the word.

“We have gathered some people here to listen to what you went through. So please, go ahead in as much detail as you can.”

He sounded curious and very, very uncertain.

“Ok, yeah. But first.” Gilliam turned to Jial. “You said I was gone for two weeks since I was stabbed, right?”

Jial nodded. “Kind of. You were gone for 10 days. I rounded up at the time.” He had his normal stern expression making Gilliam wonder why he added four days, but ignoring that for now.

“Ok. Since I have my companion with me here, I’ll start with things from the first portal opened....”

Gilliam had all eyes locked on him in great interest as he started explaining, starting with the feeling he had when the red orb formed for the first gate.