Preparing for Apollyon

The rest of the day was largely spent in preparation. While he worked, however, Fenrir's mind remained occupied with the question of who else he ought to take along into Apollyon.

He began with the question of whether he really even needed anyone else. Sure, he had become accustomed to having at least three companions on these trips of his, but was there an actual need for them?

Yes, he decided. While not indispensable, having the extra hands was definitely useful, and having someone who knew their way around a fight and could watch his back had been a -possibly literal- lifesaver.

Speaking of which, who did he have that could serve as bodyguard? Katari, obviously, but Myrina was now a viable candidate as well, and Safara might be able to fill the role if and when he could figure out a way to remove her null rune.

Tsavani, while not the same kind of fighter as either Katari or Myrina, wouldn't make for a terrible choice either. She was very good at using the distractions provided by others to eliminate her targets, or at least, she had been so when they had cleared that dungeon on the way home from Eldfall.

On the other hand, Saeko seemed to have extensive experience in battle and was an expert at controlling the flow of a fight, on top of being a competent healer. With the benefit of two or so months in Ruyanei, Fenrir could say with fair certainty that a good healer was worth their weight in gold.

There didn't seem to be any healing rune circles despite Safara telling him that many runeworkers had put years of research into trying to develop one, so the only options for accelerated healing came from instinctive magic, or alchemy. And classes that provided any sort of healing spells were relatively rare, which made him wonder about his succubi.

Two out of the eight had Minor Healing as an instinctive spell, which while limited in its usefulness, was still far better than nothing. And the mere fact that it was called 'Minor' Healing indicated that there might be upgrades to it down the line as the succubi grew stronger. So were there stronger succubi celebrated as healers among the forces of the Dark? And if not, why?

No answer seemed to be immediately forthcoming, so Fenrir refocused on his original question. Who should accompany him into Apollyon? It was well worth remembering that without a Key of Apollyon any skills, magic, or abilities would be cut off, and he only had two.

So if he wanted to take, say, Saeko with him, she would need to be given a Key to be of any real use as a bodyguard. Not to mention that Saeko wasn't actually loyal to him yet, despite appearances, so taking her constituted something of a calculated risk. On the other hand, this would force them into near-constant contact, which would help his Alpha perk bring her under his sway sooner, and leaving her entirely to her own devices for too long carried its own risks.

Tsavani would be far less likely to need a Key to be effective in combat, but she was also more limited in how much direct protection she could offer. Not to mention that she was less experienced, and he wasn't particularly eager to put her in too much danger. Of course, there might well be no danger at all on this trip, but he felt it wiser to plan for the possibility.

Katari suffered almost no loss of effectiveness without magic or abilities so far as he could tell, since her fighting style relied so heavily on simple skill and experience. She had a couple tricks she could pull out if necessary, but even without them she still remained a dangerous combatant. However, he had brought her along on every trip he had taken thus far, and though he knew she was never going to ask for it, he felt she deserved a bit of a break.

Their resident amazon would suffer a little more from Apollyon's nulling effect, but she was far from being rendered helpless by it. And it would give him the chance to firm up the foundation of their new relationship, which was something he definitely wanted to do. He might have gotten an admission of love from her, but neither of them had had a chance to settle into the dynamic of their changed relationship, and delaying that by promptly going off and leaving her at the castle for an indeterminate amount of time wouldn't be helping either of them.

The direwolf was pulled from his musings by the appearance of Violetta, of all people. "Dinner is ready," she almost squeaked, trying and failing to maintain eye contact with him.

"Already?" Fenrir straightened, wiping his hands on a handy piece of cloth. He had been packing one of the various bags that they planned to take with them for trading, and while he had recruited several of his other girls to help get things ready, at the moment there was no one else in the room. "Time flies when you're keeping busy, I suppose."

He paused, looking at Violetta. It was the first time she had sought him out of her own volition, and even now that she was standing before him, she seemed much less terrified of him than he ever remembered seeing her. Nervous, certainly, but there didn't seem be much actual fear there.

With that in mind, he asked, "I'm almost done here; mind giving me a hand finishing up?"

Violetta seemed to try for a response but her voice refused to cooperate, so she settled on a shy nod instead and stepped forward, ready to assist. Fenrir put her to work handing him the last few supplies that needed to go in the bag, keeping up a casual stream of conversation all the while. The succubus didn't say much, but he caught a happy, almost proud little smile lurking at the corners of her mouth as they worked.

The sight brought a smile to his own lips, but he suppressed any other indication he had noticed and between the two of them, they were soon done.

As they walked along the corridor back towards the kitchens, he said, "I've noticed you've been spending time with Tsavani recently. How's that going?"

Violetta steepled her fingers in front of her mouth, smiling shyly down at them in a manner which threatened to give any unprepared spectator diabetes. "She's nice. She doesn't talk much, but the quiet doesn't feel awkward with her. And, um... her being quiet so much gives me time to talk, if I want."

Fenrir nodded. "I'm glad to hear it. I was a little concerned that she might have trouble fitting in here, since as you said she isn't very demonstrative most of the time. But you making friends with her gives her an 'in' to the succubi, so to speak. After all, it's a lot easier to engage with a new group if you already know at least one of the people in that group."

Violetta's glance up at him was lightning swift, and if he hadn't already been looking at her he would have missed the surprise writ large on her countenance. Her gaze fell as soon as it met his, however, and her tail twisted itself into anxious curls for a moment before quieting. She didn't raise her head again, but after the first fit of embarrassment her silence seemed to be more thoughtful than anything else, and a quick survey with God's Eye decided Fenrir against renewing the conversation for the moment.

Violetta
Female Demon
Lesser Succubus Lvl 3
Status: Surprised, Thoughtful
Abilities: Lesser Seduction, Sneak, ------
Kinks/Fetishes:
extremely submissive – wants to be treated gently
Disposition Towards User:
somewhat intimidated by him – wonders whether he could actually be as wonderful as Lilli and Tsavani believe him to be - is happy she summoned the courage to talk with him

After dinner, everyone gathered around Fenrir in preparation for listening to his recounting of his adventures in Apollyon, even the children. He had to admit to some surprise that everyone was interested, though when he took a moment to think about it he wasn't sure why he was. It only made sense, considering how happy they were to give him their attention on a daily basis already. And then, it wasn't as though there was all that much else to do of an evening.

'Maybe I should look into getting some different forms of entertainment for the girls,' he mused as everyone situated themselves. 'And the kids for that matter; they're growing like a house afire, and if I know anything about children it's that if we don't find something for them to do they'll find activities for themselves, and not necessarily the wisest ones either. It won't be long before they're old enough to start getting themselves into serious trouble.'

With everyone now settled in and looking at him expectantly, Fenrir shook off the errant thoughts and began. He had debated whether it was wise to tell Saeko about his hold over Elmeria, but had eventually decided that she was bound to find out before too long anyway, and excluding her would do far more harm than good.

The direwolf began with a quick recap of his trip to the capital, primarily Safara being captured by Elmeria and the rescue mission which had ended so disastrously. From there he ran over his and Elmeria's initial disagreements, his discovery of the magic nulling effect of Apollyon, and their journey across the wastes in search of anything that wasn't bare earth and glaring heat.

"It's brought home to me again just how fortunate we all are that Elmeria was unable to use her magic, or we would all likely be dead," Lilli spoke up, sitting with a sleepy Glory on her lap.

Safara nodded soberly. "Not to be rude, E'nas, but I still can't believe you were able to survive her Divine Song."

"I have partial immunity," Fenrir smiled. "It still hurt worse than anything I've ever experienced, but that's much better than being dead." He spared a casual glance at Saeko, but her face was placid, and only God's Eye revealed how much his retelling of his first brush with a Saintess had unsettled her.

Moving on, the lupine detailed how they had come across the goblins, been welcomed by them after some initial suspicion, and struck a deal to acquire a Key.

"You know, plotting to steal a priceless treasure from an ancient dragon hardly counts as 'exercising caution'," Nelith pointed out, somewhat dryly. "I seem to recall you striking a deal with me to that effect."

A wry smile touched Fenrir's lips as he shrugged. "It was a calculated risk. I judged it more dangerous to dawdle around in Apollyon while my girls were in danger. I didn't count on Kira, Katari, and Chellise stepping up in such a big way."

He smiled and nodded at the three mentioned, who each returned the gesture in their own way. Kira visibly preened at the praise, Katari bowed her head, though not without an expression eloquent of her pleasure, and Chellise giggled happily, wiggling a little in her seat as her cheeks went pink.

Nelith sighed. "I still don't like it, even if you did come out of it fine."

Fenrir nodded, his face going serious for a moment. "I'm sorry I worried you, even after the fact, but you already know I can't promise never to do anything like that again. Your safety takes priority, and I'm not going to hesitate to jump into danger if I deem it necessary to keep you all safe." He stroked the hair of Yumiko, who was lying with her head pillowed on his thigh while her two children sprawled over her stomach and chest. They, like Glory, were having some trouble keeping their eyes open.

"You just can't give me a leg to stand on, can you?" Nelith directed a mock glare at him, before slumping back against the cushions she was using to prop herself up. "Whatever. Keep going."

Smiling, Fenrir continued, telling them about the underground city of the goblins, how he had met Mitzi, Elmeria's resistance to being dressed as his slave and how he had convinced her otherwise -several of the hornier succubi shifted in their seats, hands drifting southwards for a moment before they realized what they were doing and who else was in the room- and the feast thrown in honor of him. He noticed Saeko's tails wrapping nervously around her legs as he recounted the incident, but she avoided giving any other sign of how she felt about it.

From there he related the journey to the center of Apollyon, seeing Safara perk up her ears at the mention of the Big-Legs' library and the strange runes which lined some of the books' spines. Everyone was a spellbound listener at his description of the cathedral-city in the center of Apollyon, and that interest only deepened when he came to his meeting with the White Horror and the word duel he had had with the ancient dragon.

The 'fight' which followed had everyone on the edge of their seats, appreciative gasps rising from multiple throats when he described leaping onto the dragon's back to sever the chain which held the Key. There were several winces at the next part, when he told them about being immediately flung off and slammed into the cavern wall.

Next came his escape from the enraged dragon, getting lost in the tunnels, and eventually finding his way out and making his way back to the portal and from there to the edge of the Big-Legs' territory where he had found the goblin scouts. As he began to retell his final confrontation with Elmeria, Fenrir kept a close but surreptitious eye on Saeko's reactions; this was the part he had been the most hesitant to let her hear.

What with Aimi proudly flaunting her new Mark to anyone who would look, Saeko could not have failed to be aware that he had the ability, though how much she really knew about it was still up in the air. But she was about to learn more, and Fenrir couldn't help but be a little worried at how she might take it.

From the moment she had heard about Fenrir's proposed retelling of his adventures, Saeko had known that this was something she could not afford to miss. Whether she had to resort to trickery or eavesdropping, it didn't matter. Learning more about the great direwolf's past was far too valuable to pass up.

Which was why it had been such a relief when she had been freely invited to join in and listen along with the rest of his followers. Did he really trust her so much already? Or did he perhaps not intend to recount anything particularly important?

The latter question was conclusively put to rest from almost the moment he began speaking. That he had had a run-in with a Saintess could never be anything other than invaluable information, and the way he had handled her, stalling her with conversation, playing on her past trauma, tricking her into catching herself in her own spell; it was masterful.

Saeko knew well the rumored capabilities of the Saintesses, and the Archbishop's Divine Song was infamous for turning entire battles on their heads in moments. That he was able to withstand it even for a moment was difficult to believe, and she considered the possibility that he might simply be making things up. But Safara had been a witness to the event, and Saeko knew her well enough by this point to be sure that the elf wasn't a good enough liar to fool her.

Apollyon was the next shock. Not much was known about the realm; some legends claimed it was a creation of the Ancient Race; either a refuge from the Dark, or an attempt to reach the Celestial Plane depending on the legend. There were even some who didn't believe it existed at all, but Saeko had never counted herself among them.

Every now and then, throughout history, powerful individuals would pop up with an artifact they always called by the same name; a Key of Apollyon. And while their descriptions of Apollyon varied wildly, there were enough consistent details in the stories to make its being a hoax unlikely. It also explained where the banishment spell which high-level priests had been using for centuries was sending those banished by it.

It was well known that no Dark-race who was banished to Apollyon ever returned, and of the Light-races which had been caught in the spell, very few had ever been seen again either. But she had been able to find two fairly credible accounts of a hero with a Key of Apollyon rescuing a Light-race that had previously been banished to Apollyon.

Saeko pulled herself from her thoughts to focus on Fenrir again. He was talking about meeting goblins in a strange underground city carved half out of stone. It did sound similar to other ruins of the Ancient Race in some ways, and she found herself wanting to go there herself and see the city with her own eyes.

Her attention was pulled back to more pertinent concerns immediately after, however, as he told of how he had cowed the Saintess into acting the part of a slave to him, including dressing in clothing that from his brief description even she would have considered scandalous. As if she needed more convincing of how dangerous he was.

His brush with the White Horror did nothing to lessen her respect for his resourcefulness either. Fooling an elder dragon and living to tell the tale was no mean feat. The thought again crossed her mind that he could be lying or exaggerating, but considering everything else he had done this wasn't out of the realm of possibility, nor did it feel like a lie. He was clearly enjoying the reactions of his audience, but she spotted several points where even just a minor change or exaggeration would have made for a much more shocking tale. He never took the opportunity.

What he told them next, however, blew everything else out of the water entirely. If he was telling the truth -and here Saeko had her doubts- he had talked a Saintess into what essentially amounted to magical enslavement to him, and not just any Saintess, but the Archbishop of Marstolle herself.

Saeko glanced around, noticing the lack of surprise on most of the listening faces. Tsavani was wide-eyed, and Myrina was staring at Fenrir in open-mouthed astonishment, but none of the succubi exhibited any shock, and neither did Safara or Katari.

She felt a hand on one of her tails and looked down. Chellise was holding onto one of them in an attempt to keep it from batting her in the face. Saeko's eyes went wide and her ears fell flat in embarrassment as she snatched it out of the way, and she whispered a quiet apology to the young succubus.

Chellise smiled back, clearly not too bothered. "Don't worry about it. Your tails are really soft, by the way."

Uncomfortably aware of Fenrir's gaze on her, Saeko tried to recompose herself. Her thoughts were in such a whirl that it was difficult to keep up any sort of facade, and from the heat in her cheeks she knew she was blushing, something which she almost never did anymore.

Thankfully his story was almost over, and just a few minutes more sufficed to tell how he had finally returned to Ruyanei several weeks after his initial banishment, though at exactly the same spot at which he had left it. Normally these sorts of details would have been fascinating to her, but right now she wanted nothing more than to get somewhere private where she could think over everything she had just learned.

It took thirty more agonizing minutes, however, as no one seemed to be in a hurry to break up the gathering, and the last thing she wanted was to arouse suspicion by leaving immediately after she had been told such sensitive information. His gaze had rested on her more than once during the telling, and while she couldn't definitively say there had been any real scrutiny in it, she knew that were their positions reversed, now was when she would be watching him most carefully.

So she forced herself to join in the general conversation, discussing the various aspects of Fenrir's adventure and, despite her best efforts, repeatedly failing to keep her tails under control. Eventually she placed one of them in Chellise's hands and curled the other around the back of the mint-green succubus' head to serve as a pillow. Most kitsune would have looked at such an action askance, for she and Chellise could hardly be called close, but desperate times called for desperate measures and the constant tactile sensation of Chellise's stroking hands, both oh so blissfully pleasant and almost painfully discomfiting at the same time, kept her attention firmly grounded in the present.

It was only after she was safely in her own room and disrobing in preparation for bed that she realized she barely remembered a word that had been said in those thirty minutes, but she could recall every fleeting expression that had passed over Fenrir's face, especially when he had been looking at her. She couldn't repress a soft smile at the realization; it was so eloquent of where her attention had really been.

The smile fled as her thoughts turned towards what he had told them, however. Assuming he had been telling the truth, this news more than proved her justified in choosing to stay close and watch him. For all his relative weakness -he certainly couldn't stand on equal grounds with the likes of the Demon King's court in open battle- he had contrived to bring a Saintess under his direct control. That was a feat many a Demon King had tried and failed to accomplish.

Ought she to leave? ...No, she was more valuable placed at his side, with his trust in her preserved. But a warning was warranted. The question was when and how could she contrive to send it without arousing suspicion? It wasn't likely to be easy to find someone trustworthy enough to deliver it even in a center of civilization, let alone up here in this secluded corner of the world.

Ah well. The spirits would find her a way in time, and for the present there did not seem to be any great hurry. Whatever his plans, he still seemed far from ready to begin making any world-shaking moves.

Though as she blew out the candle on the bedside table and pulled the covers over herself, the thought occurred that, if subjugating a Saintess didn't count as a world-shaking move, what did?

Not too much going on in this one. Fenrir debates with himself over who he wants to take with him this time, Violetta finally gets a moment with Fenrir (there's a bit of writing in that section that I'm particularly happy with), Fenrir retells the story of what happened to him in Apollyon, and Saeko tries to hide how much it unsettles her. There's also a hint of softening there which not even she catches.
As usual, Saeko remains more difficult to write than a lot of my characters, but also more fulfilling. Probably because she's more difficult, and thus when I feel like I manage to pull her off well it feels more rewarding.
Next chapter should see us finally get back to Apollyon, and no, I haven't forgotten about Elmeria. :P Next chapter will also be the hundredth of the story. (I'm not counting the prologue, because over half of that is just regurgitating the prompt in slightly altered form.) Do you think I should do something special to celebrate the milestone? Let me know. But until then,
Enjoy!