The Royal Palace stood in the center of Haven. Four great spires poured wild mana into the air and four dungeons soaked up the darkness keeping the outside world uncorrupted.

Those four spires tall and shining with white light were beacons that dispersed the dark. Most monsters feared approaching the great towers and demon lords were no exception. They feared the spires that held an aura of light energy unlike any other creature in the Halo valley.

It was that fear that started the wars. Demon lords are beings of the highest dark power in the halo valley. They can allow no rivals to exist. Perhaps, its instinctual. Like the night and day fairies.

Trixie watched the glowing towers outside her window. They gave off a calm feeling one that didn’t necessary cause her to shudder with fear. Their light was hollow and artificial, without the intelligence. She wasn’t under the threat of a great being. Why then did demon lords feel hate from far away? Was their perception so much greater than hers that from dozens of kilometers away they saw what she couldn’t from half a kilometer?

She let out a sigh as her mind quieted and she took to her task of helping Markus sleep. A smile spread across her face. It was alien something that humans would be disgusted by. Markus’s light blue eyes always seemed to glow with kindness when he saw her smile.

Trixie checked his dreams as she did every night to ensure there were no nightmares. She slipped in without resistance. Their bond was formed on trust something alien to others who dare to master her kind.

He was a strange creature her Markus. Inhuman and yet when she begged for mercy he granted it. She had never heard of a human so willing to spare the life of another. It was a dreadful weakness and she wouldn’t allow it to kill him.

His breathing became troubled and she found out why. He was dreaming of slaying the bog hag again. She begged him for mercy, but his goal was to kill her. It was his honor and his family’s honor on the line. If it was only his own, he would have spared her. But for his family Markus would slay anyone. He was the son of might and when he accepted a quest his father’s legacy was also on the line.

In the dream he was a machine she begged, and the faces of her children watched as he did the deed. They asked him why he did it. Why did he sell them away to mages who abused them?

She had seen enough. Trixie wiped away the nightmare and filled his mind with dreams of mindless slaughter against inhuman monsters. She was there with him cheering him on in her yellow sundress and the yellow umbrella he bought her. His sword moved in deadly arcs and there was no hesitation no moral ambiguity just battle and death. His body relaxed, as his mind rested in the rhythm of battle. Memories of combat whirled around in a symphony of comfort and familiarity.

These were the Markus’s she loved the destroyer and the merciful one. A blend that was the inhuman being that was her Markus.

She turned her head to see the window open. The knight of Gilver thought he was clever. Waiting until the dead of night to sneak in and slit her Markus’s throat. He saw her and smiled. “I didn’t think he would be foolish enough to sleep with a mind flayer in the same room. Go on little monster, I’ll hold him down do what your kind is known for.” She smiled her teeth made the knight gulp.

Her tentacles were at her ankles held in a ribbon. After this one they were sure to touch the ground. The knight walked up and put his arms on Markus’s shoulders. Then she struck.

Her tentacles wrapped around the would-be assassin’s neck and twisted snapping the man’s neck in a fluid motion. So, caught up in his own delusions, he never noticed the yellow eyes that covered the room.

In his mind she had been waiting for the perfect time to betray her master and she wouldn’t betray him until after she devoured her master’s mind. The illusion had been set the second he scouted their room. He had been caught in the delusion that he was going to get this mission over with easily. Such an easy illusion the feeling of winning. It was one of her favorites.

Her mouth opened, and she let her teeth slide through the soft flesh and found the perfect spot. “Crack,” blood filled the back of her throat she made sure not to spill a drop on Markus. There was no reason to wake her master now that he was finally having sweet dreams. Once the skull was cracked she gently pulled the skull off. The sweet grey matter was underneath.

She consumed him separating skills, childhood memories, random experiences, and desires. His ego was chopped into bits and her tentacles reached the floor much to her excitement and disappointment. Trixie thought about curling them on the sides of her head and letting them cascade down her shoulders. She would need another ribbon.

She tossed the body in her inventory. Later she would feed him to Windy, like she had the others. The nightbreed needed more bones in her diet anyway. Trixie spent the rest of the night laying with Markus watching the bodies of horrors pile up from a small hill to a mountain. Dream her danced upon the corpses while he built them a castle out of bodies. It was in her opinion a sweet dream.