The Power of Ten

Chapter 15-405: Four Warned, Six-Armed

The Cult of Kali in India had a long and storied history, much of which was invisible to the eyes of those who were not involved in the undercurrents of magic behind it. Its sudden decline was directly related to the Sealing of the demonesses who had once backed it by agents of the Magi tired of them, and the Cult, deprived of the source of its power, had fallen and languished ever since.

That had changed after the Shroud Fell. Its influence tried to pry open all extra-dimensional spaces, and that included the prison space that Oymizlvitazzrkali the Saber Queen, and her four Reaper Maidens had been Banished into.

They just called her Kali, of course, and killed in her name, stirring up conflicts and wars that had plagued the Indian sub-continent for ages.

The few remaining faithful naturally knew where their goddess had been Banished from, and held quiet vigil over the site, even as they let the crude temple and its grounds fade into obscurity and disrepair, and vanish from the active memory of most men.

The Shroud had pried open a crack in that barrier, and suddenly, the faithful had a connection to their goddess, and she could speak to them!

It turned out that regular sacrifices, sent into the crack, made it easier to communicate with the goddess, and so the quiet kidnappings and rituals returned once again, even as new arts and powers proliferated, were stolen by the Cult, and its people began to grow stronger in the new ways of chi and magic that they had not possessed before.

Their inevitable return to power and domination was horribly delayed by the interference of the undead and the rakshasas, the latter having no desire to have a greater demoness running around when they couldn’t escape and were having a hard enough time staying clear of the Shrouds.

Then came the Cultivator conflicts, and the unnaturalness of the Buddhist Mantra, the new gods and religions, and even the Cultists of Kali could find a common cause against the mindless thralldom of the smiling, enslaving Buddhists.

Their status and power had risen, and with it the hopes of releasing their trapped goddess, whose bonds grew ever weaker.

Unfortunately for them, Traveler had come, and an old demon peer of their Goddess Kali had been Bound and Sealed, and her memories opened up for perusal.josei

Traveler had noticed, and directed Shvaughn to do something about it.

The Cult of Kali’s climb to power had suddenly taken a very calamitous nose-dive.

Shvaughn had alternately cloven and Consumed her way through the ranks of the Cult, whatever got the job done the easiest. Their greatest warriors, most skilled murderers, most buried agents, most faithful adherents, and most zealous Priests had gone down her throat or ended in scornflame as the Hungriest Warlock in the world literally ate them up.

This had continued right up until she ate her way through the zealous templars of the original temple now guarding the Crack and Consumed the High Priestess of the new Cult right in front of that bloodstained altar. What members of the Cult she didn’t dispose of personally, she had the contacts to do the work for her, and she swept by and disposed of them permanently later.

It could be said that Shvaughn was by far Kali’s most ardent worshipper, many times over.

The chamber itself was belowground, in an old and mazelike stretch of catacombs and ancient mines and tunnels that went on for miles... and also plunged into the Felldeep, far below, if you knew the right blocked passages to dig out and travel through.

Traveler had mapped out the entire network in passing in The Map, with Shvaughn casually filling in all the details for much of the general area Traveler had outlined. Thus, there was no chance of the two of them getting lost, even if Shvaughn had the familiarity and experience of living here for relative centuries on top of all that.

There was nothing here aside from several Wards designed to react to Evil presences, and scare away animals and low-Level people who might investigate. Naturally they had alerted the Casters of those spells that they were coming, just in case, although the Astral Wards each was employing would have evaded the Wards regardless.

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Shvaughn stared about the chamber with the confident air of one who had seen the view countless times, and pointed to one of the roughly-carved ancient statues in the room. “The Crack is in front of there. When enough magic is poured into it, typically by blood sacrifice, it opens up. Both the dead sacrifice and a living one if available were sent inside, while telepathic reports were exchanged with those within, orders received, and the opportunity exploited to act in the Goddess’ name... which she seemed to find amusing,” Shvaughn remarked casually.

The two of them examined the Crack in the air, fine-tuning their vision to look at the Seals around it, woven out of magic and partially anchored in the stone and floor about.

Shvaughn noticed Legion smile slightly first. “You have something?” she asked.

“I will have no problem exiting,” Legion smiled thinly, stepping forwards. Wrath blew up golden on their hands. “Help me pry this open.”

Shvaughn readily brought up her Scorn, and together the two of them grabbed the edges of the Crack, injecting massive amounts of energy directly as they gripped the edge of the space. It ignited into visibility, and was hauled open with irresistible pressure by the pair.

“That’s more than big enough!” Shvaughn nodded at Legion, who nodded, hopped, and dove through the slender opening as their wings vanished into shadows.

The Hungriest Warlock sat back against the cracked and shattered altar in the middle of the room, remembering offering up sacrifices here, and hundreds of people dying over decades at the hands of the Cult, rich and poor alike, often victims of paid assassinations. The Cult was nothing if not pragmatic about its need for people, and making them vanish completely was incredibly useful... and worth being paid more.

The remnants of those guilty people were now burning on her Hellpact after she had ripped everything out of them that she wanted to, treating them as callously as they had their victims.

She was fully confident that Legion was going to come walking out of that Crack in space, having eaten their mighty demon goddess and her four servants, and there was nothing the demons could do about it.

Then she was going to make out with their goddess, HER goddess, the thought of it sending electric waves of anticipation through her.

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Legion looked around at what was basically a narrow, unadorned cave.

Well, unadorned if you discounted all the human bones stacked here and there all around. In a colossal display of boredom, they’d been stacked in a chaotic series of piles Legion identified as arranged by number of teeth, size of molars, and then depth of their occipital ridges.

Bored, indeed.

The Crack hovered behind them, a layered Seal over it that would deny the demons egress, but she could hear faint creaks from beyond. No doubt the sound of services would draw one or more of the demonesses out to have some fun, and to accept any new sacrifices for consumption or abuse until death.

They started forwards, hooves silent as cat’s feet on the stone.

There were raging claw and blade marks on the stone of the walls, but all they’d done was kick up dust and make extra pebbles, no matter how deep they were gouged. This was a Sealed realm for a Banished outsider, and while it would fade with time, that time could be extremely long, depending on exactly what was done to anchor it.

Feeding her Cultists to the Casting could add centuries or even millennia to the duration, for example.

Legion strolled forwards, unconcerned. They were, after all, coming to visit an old lover, and the details of their prior encounters were definitely intense enough to warrant some anticipation.

There wasn’t much here; this was a prison, not a vacation home. The smell of old blood, gore, bone marrow, and bone was evident, but hardly off-putting to the demonic. Ahead of her, the stone corridor, lined in a Chaotic pattern of femurs and fingerbones that was actually a crude form of a Ward, widened out, and Legion paused to take in the scene beyond.

The five demons were sprawled out on a wild collection of pillows and rewoven clothing sheets spread about in an untidy mess, some of them shredded, or mended in a crazy patchwork manner that only added to the messiness of the scene. Discarded shoes and random bones were piled up in the edges of the room, forgotten, while the inhabitants were gathered around a small stalagmite the main character was coiled about, the four lesser laying on or across their mistress, barely moving and likely barely thinking, passing the time and ages in inner meditations that could last eons if required.

Colyxis, the Night Reaper. Nishita, the Blood Reaper. Unguma, the Poison Reaper. Libella Noi, the Dirge Reaper. Black of hair and skin; crimson-haired and ivory-skinned; pale green and brown of skin; and purple-haired and golden of skin respectively. All succubi warriors, only to be expected of a marilith’s personal guards.

Oymixlavitazzrkali was there, as coldly beautiful as ever in her serpentine way. She had stiff dark green hair worn in a natural crest, darkening further to the elegant fine scales of her snake-like lower body. She had scaled accents to her face, arms, and hands, pale skin tinted with green and black, with black lips and nails that would have delighted a goth, perhaps until said goth realized they weren’t painted, and saw the forked tongue flitting idly out between her fangs.

And yes, she still had the six arms, although her famous Sabers were not in evidence.

“It has been so long that you have not even greeted me?” they asked in Rayetizvisha’s voice.

There was a pillow-chopping, cotton-shredding explosion of violence. They were demons, after all, and simply lived on the edge of conflict all the time. An unexpected intruder was only going to be a surprise for the briefest moment before there was a reaction.

Legion watched the explosion of cloth falling down, and then turned to Nishita, whose face was in their palm, one Saber caught in Legion’s hand, and her other wrist wrapped about and held motionless by Legion’s tail.

“Nishita, dear.” Legion’s hand closed slightly as they brought the abruptly-helpless succubus, always eager to charge to the attack, up closer to their face. “Are you asking me to rip you apart by way of greeting? I know you enjoy such matters, but really, dear.”

With a casual flip of their tail, they tossed the succubus up against the wall like a rag doll, earning a shout as the succubus smashed into the stone and fell to the ground, both of her Sabers now in Legion’s hands.

They tossed the Weapons aside, and surveyed the three succubi with wings spread for maneuverability, all of them armed with Sabers, and rising over them, ‘Kali looming ten feet into the air, all six of her arms gripping much larger and irregularly-spiked dire Sabers, each burning with a differently-colored fire.

“Oh, you did keep your Blades, darling,” Legion said smoothly, completely undeterred. “Are you ready to leave now?”

“Queen Rayetizvisha?” blurted out the three succubi, overridden by the sibilant hiss of “Visha?” that came from their mistress.

The marilith zipped forward with the speed of a much smaller being, weaving across the floor up to Legion in astonishment... and not putting down her Blades. “You! Visha! What are you doing here?! How did you get in here?!” she demanded urgently, right up in Legion’s face.

“Oy-Oy-Oy,” Legion said, reaching up and putting a wickedly taloned finger on those black lips, unafraid. “I’m here to take you out. Are you going to make me mad for finally being able to get you out of here, darling?”

The marilith hissed, but still licked the finger on her lips once before withdrawing out of reach. “You came in! That does not mean that you can leave, Visha!” Her sibilant voice was tinged with both eagerness and despair.

“Ah, but I can.” Legion lifted her hands and pivoted around gracefully, ignoring Nishita as the Blood Reaper scurried behind her mistress... and didn’t go for her Blades at a tail-flick warning from Legion. “The Binding Seal is designed to prevent any demon that passes it from coming out, and maintains this cozy little closet you have been living in so excitedly until said demons are gone.

“However, all it sensed pass was this wonderfully durable Amazon host of mine. Perhaps you would like to join me inside her and escape from this place, mmm?”