As Jadis flew, she explained everything that had happened to Severina. Most of her story involved quick descriptions of frenetic battle, though the real focus was on the unexpected birth of Hope. As soon as that little tidbit had been revealed, Jadis could see the Seraphim’s eyes burning with interest as she kept glancing at Jay and Alex. The extremely professional Seraphim didn’t break formation, though, and stayed by Dys’ side. As much as she clearly wanted to see the newly born Succubus, doing so while they were flying at high speed through the night sky was a bad idea by anyone’s metric. Besides, Alex had wrapped the baby up in a protective cocoon of tentacles before she had fallen into a quiet silence of unmoving prayer. When she had asked, Alex had told Jay that Hope had fallen asleep, which was amazing news. Up to that point, Jadis wasn’t sure if she was going to have a perpetually awake baby on their hands or not.
Demons didn’t sleep, after all.
“I don’t think that blasphemy is following us,” Sev said while looking over her shoulder. “I don’t see any sign of him.”
“He was invisible when he ambushed me the first time,” Dys pointed out. “Is that something Vitus was capable of? Could he be following us invisibly right now?”
“Vitus had no invisibility magic so far as I am aware,” Severina shook her head. “His blessings did not lean towards illusions. Perhaps the Demon who possessed him has that power, but he did not use any such tricks while I fought him.”
“I think the Playwright was in Kastoria,” Dys explained as her mind went through the details of the fight. “He must have been controlling everything from a distance, somehow. But I haven’t seen any illusions or clones from him since we put some distance between us and the city. He probably cloaked Vitus in a spell.”
“I’ve never heard of anyone being able to cast so many complex and powerful spells from so far away. The distance between Glanum and Kastoria is no small jaunt on a breeze.”
“I know, I know,” Dys let out a growl of frustration. “I just don’t see how else he did it. He protected the Demon Dragon with illusions and clones, but that all stopped when we—”
Dys’ sentence cut off abruptly as her train of thought derailed. She had been about to say that the Playwright had stopped casting spells to attack and interfere ever since she and Alex had fled the airspace around Kastoria. But that wasn’t entirely accurate. The illusions had stopped the moment Alex had broken free of her imprisonment and slain the Demon Dragon. As soon as the rotten body of the possessed beast had been cast down, any attacks that could have been attributed to the Playwright had ceased.
Did that mean that the Demon possessing the dragon had actually been the Playwright?
No. Jadis discarded the notion without a second thought. The Playwright didn’t talk or behave like a Demon. He had grown up in mortal society, fully understanding imperial culture. Plus, there was no chance a Demon called the “Covetous Miser” was the demented ringleader of the cultists. Maybe if the notification had called the Greater Demon “The Playwright” or something similar, Jadis would believe it. Otherwise, hard no.
Replaying the fight in her head, Jadis remembered that the cult leader hadn’t started throwing his clones and illusions at her until after she had attacked the dragon, which she assumed had been because that was also around the time that she had come within a stone’s throw of Kastoria. But really, when she thought about it, the man’s spells hadn’t started hitting her until after her Jay self had torn open the dragon’s body. There was a short span before that point where all the attacks had come from dragon and the demon possessing it, but the barehanded evisceration had been the start of the Playwright’s counterattacks.
There were several different possibilities that Jadis could come up with right then and there that would explain the timing, from coincidence to spell range to dramatic effect, considering the insane asshole’s tendencies. However, the idea that struck Jadis hard was the possibility that the Playwright had been right there on the dragon the whole time. He had the ability to turn himself invisible. He could have been riding the beast without her even knowing it. Fuck, he could have been inside the dragon, as messed up as that would have been. It would at least explain why he was able to see and hear her.
There were plenty of other explanations, too, but the idea stuck. With the kind of power that the Playwright had exhibited, Jadis could easily imagine him riding on the dragon as some kind of mobile observation platform. The beast could have been invisibly circling Glanum ever since the siege of the city had started, and the cult leader could have been on its back, observing and controlling his illusions and clones from the safety of the sky. It would certainly explain how the massive undead dragon had managed to get so close to the city without any watchers seeing it. The Playwright had kept his demonic ride cloaked in illusions.
“Jadis?”
Dys blinked, then shook her head. She’d left Severina hanging while her brain had chased off after improbable geese. There was no way to prove her suppositions, at least not at the moment. Certainly, they were speculations for another time.
“Sorry. Just had a wild idea about that fuck face dramatist. I feel like I might have missed my chance at ending him. Again.”
“I understand,” Severina nodded, the grim expression on her face partially hidden by her helmet. “I do not think any of us will feel fully at ease until we put an end to that man’s madness.”
“Maybe we should take the fight to him and attack Kastoria directly? I think he might be there.”
While Jadis fully expected Severina to brush her suggestion off as a joke or an unwise proposal from someone who had many reasons to be upset and not thinking clearly, she was surprised to see the Seraphim give the idea some serious thought. After a few seconds, she gave Dys a serious look.
“That is not an undertaking we can approach lightly. However, with the power that you and your mercenary company possess, myself included, and Noll the Savage on our side as well… Those are heavy weights that could tip the scales in favor of an assault. I am sure you saw that the lost city has strong ranged defenses.”
“I noticed,” Dys agreed as her mind went to the huge blobs of acid that had been hurled at her.
“Those are but one of the many obstacles that the current Demon Lord has devised to hold and protect his nests of corruption. However, if we were able to destroy the sources of those foul rot launchers, an army would have a much better chance of retaking Kastoria with fewer casualties.”
Severina was silent for a few seconds, her expression turning grim before she continued.
“Of course, Prince Hraustrekr would have to authorize such an assault. The imperial military will not make a major advancement into enemy territory without his orders.”
Dys’ brows furrowed in an angry scowl at the reminder of the first prince’s Machiavellian machinations. As both Prince Kestil and Severina had explained, Hraustrekr was purposefully letting neighboring countries be overrun by Demons without offering support, apparently so that he could swoop in later with his armies and take control of the territory of the other nations with less fuss. The whole situation was abhorrent to Jadis; so many innocent lives lost all for the expansionist ambitions of a megalomaniac asshole. But that asshole sat on the throne, or would be soon enough, judging by the declining health of his aged father. There wasn’t a lot Jadis could do.
As one part of Jadis’ mind buzzed with frustrated thoughts revolving around princes and nations, another part perked up into increased attention as Noll tapped a clawed finger against Syd’s shoulder.
“Do you see that?”
“See what?” Syd asked as she craned her neck around to see where her mentor was pointing.
“North of us. Those flashes.”
Syd rose a little higher into the sky and rotated her body so that she was flying in a position that made her look like she was lying on her side. She trusted Noll’s balance and grip would be more than enough to prevent him from falling off as she performed the maneuver. Gazing into the far distance, Syd scanned the terrain north of them for any sign of flashing lights. The moon was no more than a sliver of a crescent, but the sky was clear, and the stars were bright, so Jadis wasn’t completely blind. Still, she saw nothing like what Noll had described. Just dark hills and distant mountains.
They were flying along the coast of the Siren Sea, which wasn’t the exact way that Jadis had come from when she had pursued the Demon Dragon. It was easier to follow the water, though, than just point herself in a general southeastern direction and hope to find Glanum. If they followed the coast, they would come upon the Haliax River eventually, which they could then follow upstream to the imperial city. She guessed that they were maybe halfway there back to Glanum, just based on how long they had been flying for, though she really wasn’t sure. The landscape below them was still corrupted by Demons, with a toxic fog covering the ground. Every time she glanced below them, she could see movement among the rocks and churned earth. She guessed that the Demons who infested the land between Kastoria and Glanum were all riled up by the glowing wings that had been passing overhead, though maybe they already knew about the fighting closer to Kastoria.
“I don’t see anything,” Syd said after a few seconds of scanning the horizon.
“There. Just now. In the sky, heading northwest.”
Syd strained her eyes but still saw nothing. Apparently, even with one good eye, Noll still had better vision than her. Skills were no doubt involved, she was certain, but she had her own resources to draw on. Provided Alex had more magic to spare.
“Alex? Can you transfer more magic to me?”
“Yes…” Alex replied as her three eyes opened to gaze up at Jay’s face. “Are your wings… Running out…?”
“Not yet,” she shook her head. “I’ve got at least another five minutes on them. I want the magic so I can try Eyes of the Succubi. I think the spell might help me see in the dark.”
Alex nodded in understanding before Jay felt the tingle and rush of her Focal Shift pouring magic into her. The Demon’s prayer had been productive, as Jadis saw her reserves go up by three hundred points. She had already had an increased recovery thanks to her lover’s Jadis’ Prayer, so she had more than enough magic to use the magic eye spell while having enough left over for another cast of the wings when needed.
Taking a deep breath, Jadis mentally prepared herself before casting the spell.
The breath really did not help.
Jadis’ three selves gasped as the world around them lit up like a lightshow. The confusing glow and glitter that surrounded her took her off guard, and for a moment, all she could do was try to process what she was seeing. Her Agility-boosted brain adjusted quickly, though, and she was eventually able to resolve what she was seeing into something comprehensible.
Her normal vision had not been replaced. She could still see her selves and Alex and Noll and the landscape below them in the same way as she had been able to before casting the spell. However, Eyes of the Succubi had created a sort of extra image that was superimposed over everything that she could see regularly. It was not unlike how Jadis could see through three different sets of eyes at the same time yet could still comprehend the individual perspectives separately from each other. The spell allowed her to see two different visual realities without one taking precedence over the other. If this was how Hope saw the world, she marveled at her child’s ability to multitask.
She also fully understood why she was smiling so much.
Jadis’ bodies were glowing. Not just her wings. Those, funnily enough, didn’t look any different than before. But now her whole body was glowing with the same white plasma that her tendrils possessed. It was not a harsh light; it didn’t make her wince or squint. It was a powerful, beautiful, almost alluring shine that made Jadis want to reach out and touch what she knew was her own inner magic.
She could also see that it wasn’t at its fullest, either. There were lines, or edges, for lack of a better word, that Jadis could see around her bodies. It was somewhat like a glass outline, and the plasma energy of Jadis’ magic was contained within. While the magic completely filled the container, she could somehow sense that there was plenty of room for more. The magic wasn’t as dense as it could be. Which made sense, since Jadis’ magic reserves were far from full.
Looking beyond her three bodies, Jadis was struck by the sight of Alex in her new vision. The neon blue highlights of the Demon’s body mirrored the magic within her, which glowed with swirling power. Unlike Jadis, whose magic had a far more languid feel to it, Alex’s mostly empty container was roiling with that blue energy. Jadis could actively see the plasma-like magic energy stirring inside Alex, growing at a rapid rate as her incredible Will stat refilled her reserves with impossible speed.
As Jadis gazed at Alex’s beauty, she saw that the magic energy that was bubbling up inside of her wasn’t appearing from nowhere but was actually flowing into her from the air around her. It was subtle, but there was a faint glow in the air that Jadis could see with her temporarily enhanced eyes. The glow reminded Jadis somewhat of the miasma on the ground below, at least in so much as it was a sort of fog that lay over everything, but it also didn’t obscure her vision at all. It wasn’t a thick soup, more like a barely noticeable filter that had been placed over the world. While Jadis looked at the open sky, she barely noticed it. But when she instead looked at Alex, she could see that substance, the Aether or whatever her spell description had called it, gathering and flowing into the Demon like iron shavings around a magnet.
When Jadis used one of her selves to look at Noll, she saw that he had no outline. She could see some magic glowing along edges of his armor and his sword, some of which was more visible than other parts, but the therion himself had no glow at all. Jadis knew that Noll had no magic classes, which meant he had no points put into his Focus or Will attributes, either. The result of that lack of magic was a figure that Aether flowed around, but not through. Like a rock in a stream, he affected the flow, but he wasn’t a part of it.
Looking down, Jadis could see hundreds of lights dotting the landscape in her vision. They were the agitated Demons, she was sure. She could see them well enough, the fog doing little to obscure their magic glow, but she noted that her magic vision didn’t allow her to see through objects. She could see the glowing forms of the Demons appear and disappear as they went behind rocks or dug underground; it was only when she had direct line of sight that their magic was visible to her.
The sight of the crawling horde far below them reminded Jadis of the whole reason why she had wanted to cast the Eyes of the Succubi on herself in the first place. Looking out in the direction that Noll had originally indicated, Syd searched the distant sky for any flashes of light. It took less than a second for her to spot exactly what the old wolf had spied with his yellow eye.
There was a strange, iridescent light streaming through the night sky heading northwest at a noticeably quick pace. It was large; Jadis could tell that much even at a great distance. The hue of the thing was somewhat opalescent, with various rainbow colors sparking off from it randomly. Every now and then a particularly large burst of magic energy would explode from the back end, which Jadis could see with her plain eyes now that she was looking at the source directly. The aether surrounding the large, football shaped figure rippled like a placid pond that had a particularly fat duck paddling across the surface. The meteoric sight was rapidly fading from her vision, showcasing just how fast it was going, though what was more concerning to Jadis was how low the object was flying. It was probably no more than a hundred feet from the ground, and it was dipping lower by the second.
“Oh god,” Syd uttered with her eyes wide and mouth hanging open. “Please tell me I’m seeing things.”
“What?” Noll snapped, his attention razor sharp at the potential for danger. “What are you seeing?”
“I’m pretty sure that’s the Behemoth.”
Noll snorted loudly.
“Of course it is.”
“Of course it is,” Severina echoed Noll’s exact words after Dys repeated what she had seen to her. “You would have to chain them to a tree to stop them from following after you.”
“You mean like how you followed after me?”
“That’s different.”
“Sure,” Dys huffed while rolling her eyes.
“Of course… They follow…” Alex responded to Jay’s update to the situation. “They love you…”
Jadis couldn’t argue with that sentiment.
“Hold on tight,” Jay said to Alex as she turned their direction to chase after the airship’s bright, glowing beacon of magic. “This night isn’t over yet.”
“It is not…” Alex agreed. “Hope is awake… And she is hungry again…”
225