Give the demons what they want

"I say we go ahead with Bazzog's plan," Shiroe said, "but with one or two small changes."

At long last, the signal came. Bazzog placed his hands upon on the mossy stone pedestal, and spoke the incantations, invoking Olrara's Dark Conveyance ability.

In the center of a ring of Mephits, four figures appeared, cloaked in luxurious bedsheets, which had been slashed in several places. Xylyra, in the center of the group, looking distraught as she hunched over the crumpled forms of two of the cloaked figures. Behind her, Olrara stood, holding a nasty-looking dagger, stained with blood.

"What's going on!?" Xylyra sobbed, as the tears rolled down her cheeks. "I trusted you!"

"Shhhh," Olrara said, "Very soon, you will trust me again. All of this will fade like a bad dream. And we can begin our new lives together. Isn't that right, Lord Bazzog?"

Bazzog's sinister chuckle bubbled in the back of this throat as he strode forward to savor this moment of victory. "How easily you--"

"Now!"

Niki and Shiroe threw off their bedsheets and rushed forward to attack Bazzog, while Xylyra and Olrara embraced and kissed passionately.

"Midnight Gluttony!"

The miasma surrounding the Realm began to fluctuate, much as it had all throughout this campaign. This time, it was different, though.

This time, the entire boundary was fluctuating at once.

"What are you doing!?" Bazzog screamed as he slammed his claws down on Shiroe and Niki. Both parried the blows as best they could, more interested in keeping opponents off of the Succubi than actually fighting back. Shiroe couldn't counterattack very well while holding the longspear like a staff, but Niki managed to heave the demon's massive pincer back, and follow up with a Shield Bash to the chest.

The Mephits looked around as the Miasma walls around the land contracted again and again. Land kept disappearing into the swirling pink clouds, one hexagon at a time, as it gradually became obvious that Olrara intended to take everything Xylyra had, and Xylyra intended to let her.

The Mephits exchanged glances, then slowly began to back up.

"Traitors!" Bazzog bellowed, "You cannot withdraw now! By the power of this contested land, I command you!" But the power that governed this land was clearly fluctuating wildly as the world itself came undone. The morale of the Mephits, flimsy at the best of times, didn't break so much as shatter like a Prince Rupert's Drop struck from the wrong angle.

As the Mephits scattered in an effort to get into an adjacent hex before it vanished, and as the Dream Palace drifted smoothly into position overhead, Bazzog realized that Olrara had the opportunity to truly go for broke. "This is your chance," he said to her, as he grappled with the mortals. "Take it all! Betray her! She doesn't think that you will, but this is the power of the great Gedeos! I can do such great things within your Realm, once you consume me! Together, we shall usurp vast armies of Demons! If only you consume every last--"

The maelstrom of a land grab suddenly ceased when Xylyra had only one Hex left. Just a single plot of land, containing the Dark Conveyance node, the Dream Palace, and themselves.

Xylyra smiled weakly as she opened her eyes. She'd known all along she'd been right to trust her friend.

"Midnight Climax."

At Xylyra's will, the sky turned red. Dozens of Imps flooded in from Olrara, then hundreds, and Bazzog roared and thrashed, slaughtering them at random as they feebly attacked him in kind.

"Form up!"

Niki brandished her buckler and interposed herself between Bazzog and Shiroe.

"Attack!" He didn't need to tell her twice.

As Niki waded into the frey, she managed to land a few solid blows to his shell. Shiroe's spear mostly glanced off, but it did manage to stick him once or twice. But these cracks in his armor were all the Imps needed to to start landing slashes of their own. When Shiroe managed to wrench a shard of cracked shell off by using his spear as a lever, it gave Bazzog a weak point that some Imp or another could dig their claws into no matter which way he turned. As they continued to flood in, they soon overwhelmed him with sheer numbers, crawling all over his body as Shiroe and Niki slowly backed away, as close to the walls of miasma as they dared.

"Mercy," begged Bazzog the Unrepentant, "I yield."

"No, you really don't," Xylyra said, as her fingernails grew into massive talons."That's the problem with you."

Xylyra flashed forward and was suddenly upon Bazzog, latching onto him and sinking her claws into his open wound.

"Should we do something?" Niki asked, shaking her buckler to dislodge a curious Imp who'd started to climb it.

"I can't move," Shiroe said, pushing an Imp's elbow out of his face. "Can you?"

Xylyra just kept on slashing and slashing, and she didn't stop until she got Experience Points for it.

"There's the Monster I fell in love with," Olrara said, clinging adoringly to the Mistress of the Realm.

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