A long Journey

Apparently the city Nealie had in mind was still weeks away, and while you pass by multiple smaller settlements, no one is able to give you more than rumors about where exactly a portal to Earth Prime is. And so you ride, sitting opposite one another in the opulent stage coach. You spend this time using the light a crystal lantern to read the journals and learning the spells of your bodies previous owner while Nealie sits serenely with her eyes closed. Most pertain to the binding of souls, and manipulation of the mind. Some are dark enough to send a shiver down your spine, but you acknowledge the necessity of having some sort of power in hell, and so you continue to study. Every now and then you simply close the book and stare out the window. It's dark all the time here, only filling with a red glow when near some burning sulfur pit, or magma flow. Very frequently it's too dark for you to see a few feat beyond the edge of the carriage. It makes your soul pine for the freedom of those green mountains from your vision.

There is no night, but, and Nealie uses her service spells to set up a large camp and luxurious tent. Despite your protests, she prepares a grand banquet every night which only you seem to partake in. Neither Nealie nor the beasts seem to eat anything. The beasts, in fact, reveal themselves to be some form of lesser demon every night, transforming from their beastly equine form to bald, lithe demonesses with wiggly barbed tails and cute little horns. You can hear them tittering, moaning, and fucking most of the night, but by the time you wake, they've always returned to their four legged form, waiting to be hitched to the carriage. You tried speaking to them once, but their mind was of singular focus. Sex and service was the extent of their knowledge, experience, and longing. You do find one purpose for them however. They are willing test subjects for your new spells. You learn to make them dance in unison, recall things that never happened, and even trick one into thinking she's a greater incubus for the night (at the request of the tittering more submissive twin.) You decided not to do that any longer after you were kept up all night by their perverse wails and moans.

Nealie, was a much better companion, sharing with you the nature of hell, and the hierarchy of the more lawful demons. She talked at length about how cities were pensive truces between different powers that found it equitable to work together. She defined how governments were largely determined by the capacity of different demons to enforce their authority, and how different clans would come together as a leader was proven worthy, then mercilessly vie for power underneath the greater demons authority. Isyphenia was the uppermost ruler of such a region, but only because she established her power so far away from anything worth fighting over. Closer to the larger cities she would have had to submit as a lesser power. Despite this powder keg of a hierarchy, things remained relatively peaceful. The powers of hell were calculating enough to instigate conflict only when victory was guaranteed, and could be performed in such a way as to not upset neighboring powers. What the two of you had done would undoubtedly cause ripples throughout the region. However, no matter how much the two of you spoke about the world, or spells, or plans, or even your vision, Nealie remained guarded about her personal life and history. Every night, rather than joining you in the bed, Nealie would leave you and stand a sleepless guard just outside the tent.