Pain sang along every nerve of exposed skin as the freezing wind scoured at flesh. Even as cold resistance ticked higher again, and her health sank, Julia didn’t move. Instead, her gaze stayed fixed on the sky above, watching the beauty of what appeared to be the aurora borealis, if it wasn’t the aurora australis. Ridges of ice spoke of the Arctic Circle, though it could be the Antarctic. But in either case her resistance wasn’t close to providing her with enough protection from its brutal cold.
Stupid fucking conduit, I need something better.
{{It’s like a rainbow, you know, just not from a unicorn’s arse. Does your poor little wormy not hit the G spot?}}
Just a little longer.
{{I’d love if that was true. You’re not drowning emotions in ice, but why the fuck are we just standing here! }}
With the anger in B’s voice came a wave of assorted music, mingling together, clashing and overlapping till they are just a solid wall of awful noise.
{{Do this bullshit when you know folks are asleep. You’ve not seen any of them. Eivor responded to the request quickly so people are awake!}}
Stop it.
{{Leave this ice-block, and I will. }}
Even as Bs snark strengthens, Julia can feel boxes deep within being tapped with steel-tipped claws. When Teleport puts Julia beside the familiar knoll south of Eyrarháls, the racket instantly stops. The sky above is bright and clear, even though the air still holds winter’s chill. Changing into a sliver, Julia pushes into the soil before using Harmony and Zen State to open her attention to the mindscape within.
B’s island floated closer than before, with her laying on a deck chair looking extremely comfortable. Her form was echoing Julia’s mortal form, wearing her favourite psychedelic bikini, with sunglasses perched on her nose. Dozens of crates and cases suddenly sat like steppingstones to where Livia’s bridge had connected their islands, the island that had only been big enough to hold B’s chair flexing to let them all fit in.
“You moved at last, I feel positively awash with heat now,” B purred, stretching out, and a remembered summer sun beat down on them both.
“I was going to leave shortly,” Julia replied, trying to keep her calm.
“That’s what you said after your last lot of fingers turned black. Baby, just pick a safe word and find Sarah. Get her to flog you till you don’t know which way is up. There’s one who knew how to follow her path and not bother with your prudish rules.”
Guilt burnt with white-hot pain even under Zen State, and the mind palace vibrated as Julia’s arms shook again, but not from any cold.
“What did you do to the boxes?” Julia asked as her gaze slid over the closest one with its lid flipped open, sitting upside down.
A gesture from B spun the box around, exposing the shattered lock and broken front.
“What on, well not earth, do you mean? I broke them, of course no locks, no way to compartmentalise. You abused your knack for far too long. I told you it was making things crowded. After all, you’ve got Zen State; you’ll want to challenge it, right?” B asked, her voice oozing with a passive-aggressive tone.
“How does it help you if I left it all locked away and not bothering you? But don’t worry, I’ve still got more. I released all the pain you’d pent up since arriving in the Abyss and the last two, well, maybe three or five lifetimes. You were a tough nut to crack.”
As B spoke, a finger flick sent the crates and cases into the oblivion between them. B’s island grew more significant until it became a warehouse filled with an endless variety of boxes. The one thing they had in common, regardless of material, the sides were bulging and sealed shut with locks and bolts. One stack floated down from a top shelf and sat in a swaying tower near B.
“Why?” Julia asked, disbelief mixing with anger and rage at her own Id, making everything harder than it had to be.
“Oh, such emotions I’ll get excited, Babe,” B said, slipping a hand down to cup hard between her legs, “yeah, that’s what I was talking about. Once more with feeling! If you are nicer, I won’t have to break any more boxes. Isn’t that how you’ve been dealing with the naughty Demons wanting to challenge you? Threaten them till they quake?”
Julia saw B’s fingers tighten and rub as remembered pleasure rocked the mind palace and threatened to snatch her mental balance away.
“Julia to me, you’re the tormenting Demon. Ignoring me again will not end well for either of us.”
“What you suggest too often I want no part of,” Julia stated firmly, memories of enough encouragement that turned her stomach, running through her awareness.
“So you say, till you find it useful for a plan of yours. I helped you with how to move and what to send. Then it was ‘back in your box’. If I’m getting stuck in a box, I’ll make you hunger for something in yours.”
As B spoke suddenly, her island became a stage, the Id going through the motions of exotic dance. The feelings that they’d used taunting the Demons snuffed out ineffectively, but still teasing past Julia’s will. Rows and rows of Brín pressed tight around the stage, every one of them wearing Lêdhins’ dark grin.
“It’s my choice. That fuck took everything else from me. I still have a choice. I don’t want it to be just some random, meaningless nothing. Who’s going to love a Succubus, honestly? Even if they did, what sort of life could I offer them? Venture from the Abyss now and again till I’m no longer allowed that freedom. Or stay with them till the Lady finds out and uses my name to turn me on them? Watch them grow old and die or look at me in disgust when they hear of the places I’ve been and things I’ve done. I will do whatever I need to escape the Abyss.” Julia found herself on her feet instead of cross-legged, and the island grew to let her pace.
The words’ heat earned a throbbing laugh from B, but before Julia can continue, the Id suddenly seated behind a desk. Her island morphed into a mishmash of TV psychologist offices, most of its contents shifting from one moment to the next. Some elements remained constant: the fake certificates gleaming on the walls, the desk, a fresh look for B along with a throne.
The closest certificates Julia could see proclaimed her many things: a junior sex club graduate, blowjob qualified, mob moll and proud, and they got even stranger from there. A straightforward desk of fake gleaming wood sat perfectly aligned, yet it was just a prop to accent what lay behind. An obsidian throne rose on a pillar of Demonic dead, and B herself was back in Julia’s Succubus form; nearly naked, a sheer outfit of red silk draped to revel in her lushness instead of concealing. The tiara had changed into a crown, a full circle of horns, with black flames atop their tips. Wings larger than in real life stretched behind and tore at air that screamed in pain.
To Julia the worst yet were the chains stretched from her arms. Links dripping blood joined manacles clamped around the throats of the Lady, the Castellan, and other Succubi of the Sisterhood; links that extended onwards and dug deep into the bedrock of the Abyss. The Lady and Naz’rilca were in pride of place beside her throne, rotting in eternal pain with spikes pinning their shoulders to its side. As Julia watched, B gouged nails through the flesh rotting off their faces.
“At least you’re admitting to having emotions instead of just locking them up with me. Progress! But you’re still lying to yourself. You did not need to pick this fight with Set! Are you craving Power?” B asked, her expression sneering in disgust.
“Wrong! You don’t get it, I might need control, but you’re so self-centred. How the fuck could I live with myself knowing I could help stop someone like that and didn’t. There are people as powerless in his priests’ grasp as I was within Lêdhins’. I’m not going to just turn my back. I felt like I was a toddler, wielding a nerf bat, trying to hurt a man in sci-fi power armour. He locked down Protean, my ability to draw Mana, almost ignored Energy Drain. Ki Strikes did nothing to him. What the fuck do I do?”
“I was there too! Avoid him, grow stronger, then when you’re tough enough to fight the Lady, crush his balls first! In the meantime he’s killing Demons. Such a shame.” B snarled in response, her tone as if she was expressing the obvious.
V’s voice came booming in, rocking against her awareness in this place.
“You know their pain and can have compassion for them. You avoided what he threatened, and others haven’t been so lucky. Where you have strength, you have hope. Is that not so? Perhaps find someone who adds to your hope; such can come in many forms.” V said. His voice’s volume was as loud as she remembered from Livia’s memories, and it shook their islands.
“Is he always that loud for you?” Julia asked, raising a hand to one ear in mental sympathy.
B just nodded grimly and poked her tongue out in the direction from which V’s voice had seemed to originate. Then returned without a shimmer to a simple island with a deckchair. Instead of relaxing in Julia’s mortal form, she lay on the deckchair in a bikini as an ivory skin Succubus, minus the wings.
“Not now dear, I’ve got a headache.” B quipped, her fingers flicking as if to shoo V away.
“Neither of us uses our old mortal form anymore. You said he took everything else from you? In that case, isn’t that form just a denial?”
“Like I’m going to walk into town as a Succubus!” Julia declared, clenching her hands in frustration.
“Let’s say your Succubus form, just normalised? No wings, or horns, I think the boob upgrade is fine myself.” B said, cupping her breasts before laying back, and a drink appearing in one hand.
“What are the stages of grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and anal? Oh, sorry, I meant acceptance! That’s right. Could you accept anal? It’s God’s loophole, you know, straight to fifth base that isn’t sex unless you’re a guy, then it requires throwing rocks at them. Love your neighbour, but not in that way, you know. You keep your virginity, and I get some action. Win-win.”
B gave Julia an edged, mocking smile as she snapped her fingers.
“Denial, you kind-of skipped that one, even though at times you relapse very practical of you. Guess if you were busy going - no this can’t be happening; Something would have fucked us already. Darn! Do you want to head to the ledge in Culerzic, scream, rant, moan about fate? Would be nice putting my feet up in a harem. Oh Demon Lord, oh you’re so big, oh yeah.”
B spread her legs high in the air and filed her nails. When she made the bikini disappear, Julia just groaned in frustration.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Oh yes, that was the best, my Lord.” B breathed; the tone was far too convincing in afterglow mode.
“Seriously, who are you putting on the show for?” asked Julia. The bitter, waspish tone she heard in her voice causing her to glance about at the stability of the mind palace.
“Oh, I’m helping with that. We need to talk. When I’m just a voice in your mind, you ignore me. Here we talk, well sort-of: you rant, and I rant, but we’re expressing ourselves. You keep yourself busy dealing with one objection after another. I don’t think you’ve moved past the anger stage of grief yet. You were inscribing, your hands kept shaking, and you dealt with it by inscribing. Two hundred discs wasted for forty successful, seriously get a fucking clue.”
The last word of B’s flow came out with so much venom, Julia winced at her Id’s fury.
“So are we going to talk or rant?” asked Julia, trying to get on the front foot.
“After all the ignoring you’ve been doing, I’m ranting a touch. Don’t worry, I’ll get over it, just like with you and your ex, because you know you’re so over that when you don’t even think his name.”
“I don’t go back to dwell on wounds, never could understand doing that, but you keep dragging them out,” declared Julia, slowly and deliberately making her hands unclench.
“There is a difference between dwelling and acknowledging and letting go. So just think of it this way, you’re the reporter schmuck, and I’m the cool venom. Let’s agree to work together. You let me occasionally bite the arms and legs off of Demons, and I don’t push you towards something from beyond while in a town.”
“Giving you an inch sounds like bad news. I’ve seen that with Lêdhins.” Julia stated.
“I’m asking for more than an inch, and I don’t want control, just input. You skipped denial. You’ve done anger, and I’m upgrading this to bargaining right now. No more mortal Julia, or would you want boxes opening at THE worst moments?”
“How about a Norse appearance?” asked Julia, trying to distract B.
“Nope, not happening, it’s just denial. You can even pretend it’s not you. Succubus, minus bling and with a normal skin tone as well. Then it’s at least some of our base flesh. When you go back out there relax control, see what you look like, then try to deny your own form.” B said, pointing a finger at Julia as if she was digging a hole in the air.
With a groan Julia settled back for a haggling session with B.
<hr>
Julia checked the last notification as she remembered the shimmering beauty of those eerie ‘northern’ lights. The randomness of the conduit provided no surety about where she’d ended up. Yet the chill there wasn’t as cutting as the one within after haggling with B. V’s words had at least helped her set her thoughts on who she could help next.
[Resistance: Cold [I] (15->16)]
Demonic Instincts [Ad] (8->10)
Harmony [M](4->5)
Spirit Bridge [Ad] (2->3)]
Making sure no one was about with Telepathy, Julia turned from the sliver into her complete Succubus form. With a tendril extending from her leg along the ground, she grew it into a full-length mirror and set about making changes. Her tiara of horns and wings quickly went. The tongue became a standard length, including the loss of its pointed tip, and eye-teeth reverted from fangs to an average human. Ears changed from a mockery of Elven to normal human, while the ivory skin tone turned to an old school Aussie bronze. Blood-red lips changed into a normal flesh tone, while her eyes gained warm hazel tones. Gravity-defying breasts changed to a modest c-cup, which was the smallest B would budge. Waist length hair reduced to a page cut, the short black locks brushing the sides of her face.
Quickly setting a form slot with the still uncomfortable looking supermodel in front of her, Julia grew a set of the layered Bedouin-style clothing Farhad wore.
“Livia, I’m out, though I look different to the last time you saw me. Please tell Torm or Verdandi that I’ll be at the location where I met them last time. I need to make sure my appearance is okay before I enter the town. Moke said I don’t do normal well. I think it’s worse now.”
Spatial Mana blurred away toward Eyrarháls as soon as she released the spell, and Julia headed off towards the meeting point. By the time she arrived Torm was already there waiting, as soon as he saw Julia walking towards him on the road he came to meet her. The armour she had last seen him wearing no longer present. Now he just wore loose clothing marked with the emblem of Tyr. A sturdy-looking tunic and solid cloth pants that laced up the sides of the hips, his wolfish face visible under the illusion that overlay it within True Sight.
“You look different,” Torm said when he came closer, not even hesitating in addressing her.
“I guess you can see through the form?” Julia asked.
“Always could. Celestials gain True Sight fairly easily, only messengers that stay on the higher planes and lesser Celestials tend not to have it.”
“Can you see the outside? How does it look?” asked Julia, spinning a quick circle for his review.
“Beautiful. You’ll turn heads, but it’s certainly less dramatic than the tiara of horns I see you’ve gained,” Torm said. As he moved to touch her arm Julia felt herself flinch away; Teleport set her back three metres or so down the road.
Fuck!
Julia walked forward gingerly, unsure why Zen State had her react as if she was about to be attacked.
{{Yeah, because you are perfectly fine. This is a guy nearly as big as Lêdhins and you exposed your back to him. }}
“Sorry, things got a little rough. My Id isn’t presently making things easy.”
“Your Id?” asked Torm, clearly puzzled.
“Sorry. Instead of demonic urges, I’m dealing with the repressed emotional side humans have; except mine gained its own voice, and it’s nasty,” Julia said, wondering how else to explain it.
“That’s twice you’ve said sorry, yet still you’ve done nothing wrong. I have a chit that we give to Temple visitors for you. You’ll be able to get through the wards with it. I’ll put your name as Julia on the list for the guards.” Torm said, holding it out.
Julia kept a tight rein on her reactions, letting Zen State slip away so intuition and instinct wouldn’t push her off balance.
“Why the casual clothing today?” Julia asked, “I’ve never seen you not wearing armour.”
“Master Farhad has been training me, still early stages, but I’m making progress in overcoming my bad training, so he says,” Torm replied, giving her a shrug.
“High praise indeed. You’re becoming a Monk; isn’t that an issue for a Paladin?”
“Paladin? That’s not a term I’ve heard before: I was following the Guardian Prestige Class, even training as a Monk, it still helps. Although Master Farhad makes me feel as if I’m being tossed around, he has an advantage of age on me.”
“He does? I thought you old, with an extra dose of old.”
“He does indeed. Tyr promoted me from Petitioner. I wasn’t among the original Vargr Drangijaz,” Torm corrected, clearly amused by Julia’s assumption.
“Oh. Well, there you go. What did you do to earn Celestialness?”
“Celestialness isn’t a word.”
“It is! I just used it, and so did you, so now it’s a word,” Julia argued, trying to keep her voice light, without Zen State’s calm.
“Please never use it again. I died killing a High Priest threatening the fleet of refugees before he could sacrifice boats to the depth as part of his God’s plan.”
Language snob, live a little.
{{Bet he''d be lively with you. }}
Why would he get involved with a Succubus? He''s a Celestial!
"So just a thousand or so. I guess that would do the trick,” Julia replied, rolling her eyes at the matter-of-fact tone in his explanation.
“It got Tyr’s attention, as I was concerned for others above myself.”
“Your boss is an alright fellow that way, I like the tale of how he helped Fenrir. Is that wolf really that big?” asked Julia.
“Bigger than the gatehouse, but you’re taking the subject away from your concerns. You won’t blend in exactly, but you don’t scream Demon. There will be questions regarding the difference in your appearance.”
“I’ll just tell them I got shape changed, and now I’m looking closer to my normal form,” said Julia, wincing at the edge of bitterness in her tone.
“You say that so casually. Shall we take a fast way, or should we walk?” asked Torm.
“Walk, you could catch me up on events,” Julia suggested, trying to keep calm without resorting to Zen State.
“Well, Moke, Eivor, Ipy and some others are travelling to Thebes.”
“What?!” Julia exclaimed.
Why are they traveling together? What is Eivor doing?
“He’s composed a few songs they’ve been using to spread the word about you, no backs arching to the dawn. Apparently, that was a misunderstanding. He intended it as a general erotic poem, so his new songs are to make amends. They focus on hope, freedom, and helping others regain their feet. Very Norse themed, battle-ready, sword brother, and shield maiden feel. Reminding people living is a battle, and to help neighbours, not let them fall because all weapons are sheathed.”
“Why is Eivor travelling with him?”
“Eivor’s youthful looks have given her a bit of a spirit of adventure, it seems. Things are tense between herself and Hermod, at least from what wasn’t said.”
“Damn,” Julia groaned, stomach twisting at the news.
“Not your fault. They choose their own ways. Just because things changed didn’t mean they couldn’t find a path together. Hermod follows óeinn’s ways, and doesn’t see why his wife has taken to leading your cult. Still, their eldest son is working the bakery with him now, and the lad’s wife manages the counter. With time away, when they meet again, maybe they’ll work things out; óeinn frequently travels, and Frigg is still with him.”
“Did you hit Moke for me?”
“No, I didn’t want trouble with a Skald. Though it seems I got some anyway,” Torm said, shaking his head.
“What happened?” Julia asked, the rueful look on Torm’s face catching her interest.
“Just an expanding Ode I’ve caught wind of, hopefully it will pass if I pay it no mind.”
“Yeah, good luck with that. I’ll keep an ear out, since you don’t want to tell me. I feel I owe you for the back arched nipples towards the dawn line, since it wasn’t about me.” Julia said, before poking her tongue out at him.
“Please, I’d rather you not,” Torm said.
“Oh, now I am curious,” retorted Julia, her voice light with amusement that still seemed thin.
“I should never have mentioned it.”
“Doomed!” crowed Julia, playing up to lighten her own mood.
They walked for a time in silence before Torm spoke, and Julia could sense his hesitation.
“How rough did things get for you?” Torm asked softly.
Julia halted on the road as she considered how to answer.
“Not as bad as what Sagga lived through, but it wasn’t looking good. The other Hidden I told you about. His Id is pretty dark, and he is so strong he can just lock my abilities down. He lost to his darkness. He warned me not to trust him, but I didn’t expect him to lose it like that. It was vile.”
“Locks your abilities down?”
“Stopped me from Teleporting, and using Protean, I got one spell off and that was it. Then he dragged me to a place littered with the dismembered corpses of Succubi. He was taunting me, just letting me hit him while he had his hand clamped on my throat and cut the outfit I was wearing off me. One of the Sisterhood irregulars got me loose from him, then things went sideways,” Julia explained, shrugging as she felt the knife from the memories twist around inside.
“Yngvarr relayed your message about the destruction of your form. Livia was glum until your message this morning; it delighted her to hear from you. She was crying with joy when she told me your message. “
“I’m sorry I worried her, I’ll have to make it up to her.” said Julia, trying to set the coldness away, nodding at the obvious change of subject.
“That Hidden sounds like he’s an Assassin, they have abilities to lock down their targets. The better they’ve studied them, the easier it is for them to render the target helpless,” Torm said after a moment’s silence.
“Fuck! I need to know more about that. He said he’s got the Black Knight Prestige Class, plus at least one other Storm Blade he said,” said Julia, not heeding the fingers she was rubbing along her throat.
Torm’s wince and the expression he managed said a lot before he even opened his mouth.
“He’s in sworn service to a Demon Lord then, and yes, certainly an Assassin-Fighter. Skilled enough to assassinate an enemy commander in the middle of a battle despite guards. There are likely more requirements, but I don’t know them. Guardians have ways to help counter that Assassin power, but high-level assassins can also counter each other’s ability. He won’t be someone to take lightly even if his Id wasn’t as dark as you say. Was your form destroyed before or after he injured you?”
Julia blinked at Torm’s sudden question, following on the heels of a flood of information.
Does he serve Usd’ghi or someone else? He said her task was a job?
“Afterwards, the member of the Sisterhood threw a Chaos Bolt, that’s what destroyed me. After the fighting was over, she sent me a message and told me she bid me come forth if her bolt had done the job. That was enough to lift the restriction. Why?”
“Just some abilities they have over individuals they’ve injured in past fights. They go away after a form’s destruction. I’m surprised you’re here then and not with her again,” stated Torm, the concern obvious even in his strange features.
“He injured me in training. Of course he didn’t warn me about enduring advantages. The Chaos Bolt that destroyed me also broke through a wall and the wards on the area. The fight spilled into a town we’d hit earlier, so more troops were there, and some fighting erupted in the area. She sent me the message, updated me, told me to lie low, as he’d got away. Sounded annoyed, but also like she had fun. She’s weird for a Succubus,” Julia said, the words coming out in rapid-fire as her thoughts raced.
“Town you hit? I noticed you’re not using her name,” said Torm, confusion and concern lacing his voice.
“I’ll fill you in later. The Sisterhood is throwing down with the S at present. As for her she’s a Named Succubus, so no saying her name aloud. I’m becoming paranoid about that. I’ll write it down when I talk to Farhad about the situation. Get his advice on dealing with her.”
“Why his advice?” asked Torm, his brow furrowing.
“I need to see if he knows her. She knows a Monk called Farhad from before the dragons’ rampage. Her knowledge of him let her figure out I was actually a Monk and not a Blood Monk.”
“This sounds like it could be a big problem,” Torm stated, the concern that was lacing his voice deepening as he frowned again.
“Yeah, especially since she seems really taken with me. Wants to know all my secrets,” Julia sighed and shook her head as she saw another wince from Torm in reaction.
Julia rubbed her face before she started walking northwards again. Torm moved with her but took care to walk alongside her at an arm’s length.