***The Infernal Planes of Lust***

***Amon***

“One demon saving another? What a refreshing idea,” I commented and gestured back at the group which had held my minions as prisoners. “But before that, could you explain what’s going on here? These fellows obviously didn’t think much of discussing the situation with me.”

Uphir groaned. “They took us while we were still weakened or unconscious from the fall after the sky had opened up. When I regained my consciousness, I was already in chains and then we were herded to this camp. One of them talked about forcing us into some contract. I think they are slavers!”

I scratched my chest and looked to Philomena for confirmation. Slavery or other forms of forced servitude were pretty much the only things that could truly trouble almost-immortal beings like us demons. “And what about Kitia?”

“She was with us until last night,” the large demoness reiterated. “They identified her among some others as having a magically gifted evolution. The leader rounded them up and took them away. I think they intend to contract them as quickly as possible. It sounded like someone would pay extra for demons like Kitia.”

“That is indeed troublesome.” I looked through my bag of holding while I spoke. “Did you catch any clue in which direction they went? I am afraid that I killed all of your guards, so I bet that they will be back soon with reinforcements. Saving Kitia might not be feasible at this moment, though we can try if we hurry.”

“What are you looking for?” Uphir asked and pointed up the hill. “The one with the tower shield had the key.”

I winced and put away my bag. “Yeah, I was hoping to avoid that… I will be right back.” Too bad that I hadn’t thought to bring some sort of cutting tool, or could I use a spell? Maybe, but without some practice, it would be woefully obvious that I was just trying things out.

Someone who had a magical chain around his neck wouldn’t appreciate me trying out new spells.

Sighing, I turned and trudged up the hill until I reached the site of the recent battle. The corpse of the shield-holder was already spreading a very unpleasant odour. The first thing I did was to pick up the tower shield and to store it away in my bag of holding. It clearly wasn’t a soulbound item, or it would have disappeared with its owner’s death.

But I saw first hand that it was a very sturdy piece of metal – even if it was heavy.

A further search of the body got me a ring and a stone with a rune that was glowing in a greenish light. The ring felt magical, and further inspection brought me to the realization that it was a similar enchantment as the bag of holding. The only downside was that it also wasn’t soulbound which lowered its worth drastically compared to my bag. There was no point in carrying around a vault if it could be easily taken away or lost upon death. I didn’t bother to check the ring’s contents and dumped all of them into my bag, deciding that I could look through them later.

“That’s it! That’s the key,” Uphir’s voice drew my attention away from the ring. “The stone is the key!”

The chained demons cheered while I returned with the item that would grant them their freedom. I handed it off to Uphir who pressed it against his chains. Their metal stopped glowing and his restraints clicked open. He did the same for Philomena who stood and stretched her four wings with a sigh of relief.

“Now we have to get that magic-bitch back before they can force her to sign anything,” she commented and pointed towards the open plains, looking very sure of where to find Kitia. “Follow me!” And with a single beat of her wings, she was gone and soaring above the hills.

Uphir took after her without even asking for my opinion. His legs blurred and he quickly approached the crest of the next hill.

I looked between my two ‘fleeing’ minions and the other prisoners, somehow feeling left out. They hadn't even thanked me. “Can you believe that they just took off like that?”

The other prisoners didn’t reply and instead looked at me warily while eyeing the key-stone on the ground that could unlock their chains.

I sighed and kicked the key over to the next demon in line before I took off, running after Uphir who got a good head-start. Catching up to him wasn’t easy since his evolution was apparently built for speed. It was admirable how quickly he had adapted to his strange goat-legs.

There didn’t seem to a chance for me to catch up, but I had an idea.

I summoned my wings and tried my best to heed Isabella’s advice. While I was still not confident with real flight, I dared to use the succubus’ technique to assist myself with running. By angling my wings just right and shaping a blanket of mana beneath my feet, I achieved a strange style of moonwalk by the time at which I would have almost lost Uphir in the distance.

The two really wanted to get Kitia back. It puzzled me. I didn’t fully understand the bond which the four shared. Had their life in Baaar allowed them to become something like a family unit? If so, I was envious.

What I had achieved after a few minutes of experimentation wasn’t real flight, but also not running. Instead, the acceleration coming from my wings allowed me to leap several metres at a time. As I chased my two escaped minions, I slowly got more confidence until I dared to leap from hilltop to hilltop while crossing the planes.

This allowed me to regain the lost ground to Uphir until I managed to draw even with him. “Hey, you ran off pretty quickly. What do you intend to do once you catch up to Kitia’s captors? Do you think that the two of you could deal with them without any kind of plan?”

Uphir almost tripped when I asked the question from over his shoulder, but he caught himself. He looked back at me while he kept running, studying my new mode of locomotion with disbelief in his eyes. It didn’t look like he had expected me to keep up with him.

Finally, he managed to formulate an answer. “We will teach them what it means to mess with our group, obviously. From what I could see, they were fairly weak compared to us. If we hadn’t been weakened from the previous battle, they would have never managed to take us. Do you know who was responsible for that strange rift in the sky?”

I pursed my lips and considered my answer before I replied. “No.”

Uphir seemed surprised once more when the Infernum didn’t strike me down.

It wasn’t a lie! I still didn’t know why that rift appeared after the Lode Stone’s destruction. None of my knowledge had even implied the possibility of a tear in reality that could suck everyone present into another Infernal Plane.

Therefore, I wasn’t responsible for what had happened. According to all of my theory crafting at the time, the Lode Stone should have blown up, simply discharging all the energy that was stored inside it. There was no reason for it to open a random dimensional doorway. According to all I could guess, someone else had a hand in it. That my fail-safe plan had taken an unexpected turn was therefore completely not my fault.

“What about Shax?” I asked, remembering that the now very large and bulky demon hadn’t been mentioned so far and I hadn’t seen him among the other prisoners.

Uphir shrugged. “We don’t know. The group was making its final stand. There were gas and explosions everywhere. I had my own hands full when the rift opened and Philomena said that the last she saw of him was him being sucked through the rift with her. She lost sight of Shax before she caught me and decelerated my fall. That was really the only reason why I am still alive since I can’t fly. Not a bit.”

“Hm.” I grunted. “But he made it through the rift?”

He nodded. “I can feel that he is still alive, but his life energy is dampened. I cannot point out a direction like I can with Kitia and Philomena. In any case, since I can’t point out a direction to Shax, Kitia is the more immediate concern.”

“Understandable,” I nodded and decided to tag along for now. It wasn’t like I had any particular motivation aside from finding a safe place for training. Hunting down a band of slavers was far from safe, but if I could reassemble all of my sub-commanders to have them watch my back, that would almost be like finding a safe place.

We continued on with him in the lead while I simply followed, wondering how this connection of theirs worked. Was it a skill, or something a demon naturally gained from being together with others. My question remained unanswered because I had to pay attention to keeping up after Uphir sped up even more.

There was no way to hold a decent conversation like that.

Full speed for over two hours turned out to be a taxing affair, but eventually I saw Philomena in the distance. She had crouched down and was waiting for us on the next hilltop.

Uphir slowed down and we approached her together, trying to be as silent as possible.

Once I got to take a look over the hill at what Philomena was observing, I found a slightly more sophisticated camp with about thirty people. There were three large tents and a smaller one. Dead-set in the middle, they had a large campfire going on.

I also took note that the vegetation was different here and that the sky had changed to a reddish colour. Instead of green grass, the plains in this area were dominated by moss in tones of blue and pink which created a surreal landscape. Gluttony was a place of seemingly unending rocky wastes, while Lust appeared to offer a wide variety of landscapes.

“The prisoners are inside the small tent,” Philomena commented without taking her eyes from the camp.

Uphir looked to me slightly dejected after seeing the camp. “They have met up with a larger group. There were only five when they departed from the other campsite. Do you happen to have more of those weapons?” He fingered the ring on his hand. “I have only one grenade and two gas canisters left.

Philomena shook her head. “We can’t use those anyway. The whole camp is too tightly packed together. We would get Kitia too, and who knows what would happen to her or us without a bind-point.”

“So you two are worried about that too?” I asked. They only looked at me like I should be thinking about something else, so I raised my hands, palms out. “Okay. Unfortunately, I have used up all the ammunition for my little toy. It was a one-time trick to bust you out.”

That seemed to remind them that they wouldn’t be here without me.

Uphir frowned and returned his attention to the camp. “I guess we could use my gas as a trap? If we simply walked up to them, as Amon did, some would be bound to chase us.”

“They seem more organized than the other group,” I pointed out. “How could we be sure that all of them come after us? What if one half stays behind to guard the prisoners?” If I hadn’t been certain that I could level the odds, I would have never walked up like that on Uphir’s and Philomena’s captors. “If one of us draws their attention and has them chase after him, even if the majority joins the hunt, that would still be likely five to one odds for the two of us who stayed behind.” I didn’t like those odds.

“Can we somehow protect the prisoner’s tent while we gas the rest?” Philomena asked and pointed towards me. “You are a spellcaster, right? Isn’t there some spell that could keep the gas away.”

I frowned and searched my souls’ knowledge. “I guess it’s possible to throw up a thin layer of condensed mana which would act as an air-tight barrier, but I have never done that before.”

“Fighting them head-on would be suicide.” Uphir shook his head. “We have to wait until it is dark and hope to break out Kitia then.”

“But Amon killed a whole bunch of them a few hours ago. They must be already on their way to warn others.” Philomena wasn’t of the same opinion.

“Wait, this place has night?” How surprising and refreshing! Gluttony had been always the same, ever unchanging. Was that the reason why the sky changed colours? Was it getting dark?

“Yes, it has.” Uphir returned his attention to Philomena. “That they will inevitably respawn and warn their comrades can’t be changed right now, but the fact that this camp doesn’t seem to be on high alert indicates that they haven’t got the news yet. We have also no idea where their bind-point was, but that they didn’t manage to send a message after several hours lets me hope that we have enough time. Maybe they are even separate groups from the one that caught us. I recognize none of the guards down there.”

I lowered myself to the ground and decided to rest. “If they had a way of communication, they would already know that we escaped. But how likely is it that they would expect us to attack another camp of theirs?”

“Not very likely,” Philomena admitted. “I think slaves would rather run away than fight.”

“Uphir is right that we should wait and see. I definitely don’t want to fight them after having exhausted myself.” I opened my bag of holding and retrieved three of the field-rations which I had bought alongside all the other military toys. “Want some? From up here, we have a pretty good view of their camp. It should be obvious when they receive a messenger and maybe that would be even good for us. When they hear about a few escaped slaves, they might send out a hunting party. That would reduce their numbers.”

The others seemed to agree with this logic and we settled down to wait for the night.

I asked Uphir about what he knew of the Infernal Plane of Lust. It seemed highly suspicious to me that these demons apparently preferred to camp in the little valleys between the hills. Wouldn’t it have been much smarter to camp in an elevated position where possible dangers could be seen from far away?

Uphir’s opinion on the matter was that while you could see a threat coming easier, a large camp could be seen from far greater distances and would practically invite trouble. If he and Philomena hadn’t known exactly which direction to take, it would have been very likely for us to miss the camp completely, given the hilly terrain.

As far as Lust was concerned, neither Uphir nor Philomena knew all that much aside from hearsay which they had picked up in Baaar. Lust was an Infernal Plane that was dominated by many different ecologies and it had a day and night cycle. It was also the only Infernal Plane in which demons could achieve evolutions like succubi, sirens, incubi, or dryads, though neither of the two could give me a reason for that.

It took a few hours, but eventually, the sky turned from slightly red to red, and then completely dark. We gave it enough time to allow for complete darkness before Uphir led the approach on the enemy’s campsite which was now only lit by the central campfire.

Philomena followed right behind him and I was the last in line. They didn’t want us to fly because both Philomena and Uphir suspected that the slavers would have counter-measures in place against someone who would be able to easily spot them from the sky.

Uphir also ensured me that his evolution had granted him some kind of heat-vision which made it easy for him to spot the guards who were on the lookout.

Our path took us in sinuous lines, practically crawling halfway around the camp until Uphir judged us to be in the best position for a direct approach. He waved his tail which I would have been barely able to see in the darkness if it hadn’t been for the ring that granted me Arcane Sight.

Seeing magic was almost as good as heat-vision, but not quite. The ring allowed me to see high concentrations of energy like magicians and strong magical artefacts. That’s why I didn’t question Philomena’s judgement that the prisoners had to be located inside the small tent. The entire thing practically glowed with magic in my vision.

Uphir managed to get us in close enough that I could touch the backside of the tent when he suddenly straightened and pressed Philomena and me against the fabric.

A demon had stepped around the corner of the tent but hadn’t yet looked to his left. Would he have done so, he would have found three wide-eyed demons staring at him.

Instead, he did something with his pants and sighed a moment later when a long stream of piss emerged from his crotch. The guard chuckled and aimed his excretions around in an obvious attempt to draw a circle on the earthy ground which had been torn up by the feet of the camp’s inhabitants.

His only mistake on that evening was to turn left instead of to the right once he was done.

Seeing me standing right next to him, he managed to open his mouth right before I shoved my fist down his throat while I worked my dagger through his guts.