A Taste of Hell: Caera

"Maybe. Maybe they think something big is happening? Like... like False Gate big?" Caera shrugged again, and chuckled when she noticed Marquez's defeated expression. To make it up to him, she slowly eased her increasingly hot, red, softening, and now wet slit along the underside of his cock. The bumps and ridges felt amazing.

"God I hope not," Marquez said.

Kia tried to shut him up again, but Caera blocked it, and pushed gorgala's arm away as she laughed.

"Think we should go scouting?" Caera asked. "And hunting. I left when I spotted that angel. Getting hungry."

Marquez held up both hands in surrender, abandoning his tit massage to do it. "Don't eat me!"

"Should have thought of that earlier. Too late now." Caera growled playfully down at her friend, took his huge cock into one hand, righted it, and slid the long girth and all its wonderful bumps and ridges into her dripping, boiling insides. Both Marquez and Kia groaned as they stared.

Fucking her friends was one of her favorite pastimes. Most vratorins liked to get dominant, but Marquez was perfectly willing to roll with the punches, which meant Caera got to take lead. And she did love to take lead. If Marquez had tried to fight her for it, she'd simply have wrestled him until she won. And she would have won. But there was something fun about having him submit to her freely, too.

Kia, on the other hand, preferred it when Caera or Marquez dominated her, and sure, gorgala were strong and dangerous, but they couldn't overpower a vratorin, and especially a tregeera, once they got their hands on her; easy to do with Kia considering she was their friend. A perfect sexual trinity.

She had it better than a lot of demons, and she knew it. Many preferred to stay near the more populated areas, hunting and killing each other almost as often as they hunted and killed humans. Zel had decreed the dueling law to try and minimize how many demons needlessly killed each other, but it'd only been partially successful. They still killed each other in sneaky, backstabby ways, they just made sure there weren't any witnesses.

Caera was lucky, damn lucky, to find a couple other demons with a little more brains, and maybe even a little more empathy, than her fellow demons. Now if she could just keep her friends alive while Zel made everyone's lives difficult, and angels and the Damall showed up at their doorstep.

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"Look at that," Marquez said.

Kia growled, grabbed the much larger demon by one of his enormous horns, and pulled him down into the shallow ravine.

"We'll look, if you stop giving away where we are!"

Caera snorted on a laugh, which earned a whip crack of Kia's tail against her thigh. No harm no foul, with them all in their armor again, leather straps holding bent plates of metal over bits of their arms, legs, chests, stomach, and whatnot. A few skulls too, some human, some from other demons. Typical fashion statement in Death's Grip, and probably all of Hell, fashion that said: fuck with me at your own peril.

Which, in hindsight, was probably a bad fashion choice. Demons were rarely dissuaded by the promise of a good brawl.

Caera peeked over the edge of the ravine, and down over the jagged hills of Thorn Mountain. Thankfully her horns were pretty low, especially compared to Marquez's, which made peeking over ledges easier.

They hadn't climbed very high yet, but it was already a pain to climb higher. Up here, maybe a hundred feet up, the jagged mountain had lots of cliffs they could lean over, for scouting prey. Any higher and getting down would be too difficult, especially with all the bloodgrip everywhere.

It was night. The fires of the sky burned gentle, and while some clouds swept by that carried the flame, many more swept by that had extinguished. An especially dark night. Amber veins sometimes glowed especially bright at night, but Death's Grip didn't have many on the surface. It did have burning bushes though, scattered randomly, a few jutting out of stone edges in the mountain, or cracks in the ground. In some places, black meera metal forged itself naturally, and came up out of the ground in symmetrical, spiraling patterns around a burning bush, and raised it high. The natural brazier had black skulls in its pillar, and along brazier's underside. Absolutely beautiful. Hell's art.

One of those beautiful braziers, standing ten feet high, lit up a good fifty feet of darkness, exposing sharp rock surrounding a shallow path. And in that path, was movement.

Caera growled quietly as she pressed her chest and belly to the edge of the ground in front of her, and climbed over it. Slowly, prowling on all fours, tail slithering, she scaled the side of Thorn Mountain's base, keeping many of its huge jagged boulders between her and the movement. And soon movement became noise.

She found another groove in the mountain to hide in, close enough to see in detail, far enough to run if she had to. Marquez and Kia followed soon after, but it took them a lot longer to reach her. Kia was six feet tall, a bit small by gorgala standards, but she struggled to stay low. Marquez was almost as big as Caera and had an even harder time staying low, and had to get on his literal stomach several times to reach her without risking exposing himself. Thorn Mountain did not like that, and by the time they reached her, she could smell bits of blood on Marquez's side where the thorns had got him around the armor. She'd make it up to him later.

"Holy fuck," Kia whispered. "Are those... remnants?"

Caera returned the whisper with a quiet, affirming growl. Remnants.

"Can't be," Marquez said. "Hell grows remnants out of her flesh, right?"

Her flesh. Caera rolled her eyes, and stared back over the teeming mass of moving bodies. Marquez was one of those idiots who paid worship to Hell herself, to the constant teasing of Kia and Caera, but it never stopped him. And much as Caera thought it was dumb, she did like that the moron stuck to his convictions.

"Usually," she said. "I haven't seen remnants walking around in... in a long time."

They grew quiet as they watched, and Caera could see the strange awe in her two friends. She felt it, too. Remnants were almost always attached to Hell, writhing and squirming and doing everything they could to free themselves, even though there was nothing to free. They grew from the ground, from stone walls, from the ceilings of caves, and she once heard they literally grew into the metal cages of False Gate.

"When'd you last see walking remnants?" Marquez asked.

Kia and Marquez were younger than her. They hadn't been around the last time Zel summoned a horde, and bashed heads with Alessio.

"The only time I've ever seen them," she said, "was when Zel made a grab for The Black Valley. I was..." Doing what she always did, avoiding the big battles because she cared more about her own ass than mindless violence, or whatever goal her boss would sacrifice her for. "When things got tense, and you knew battles were going to happen, remnants started walking around."

"They freed themselves?" Kia asked.

"No. No one figured out where they were coming from. Maybe Hell was birthing them fully formed? Either way, they formed into groups and... roamed... aimlessly."

The ravine beneath them was maybe twenty feet wide, and it was packed with remnants from shoulder to shoulder. But it was the length of the shifting motion that had the three of them frozen. One hundred, two hundred, three hundred, four hundred feet, maybe more, a line of bodies sauntering forward with all the hurriedness of a surface turtle. The remnants groaned and cried, some whimpered, some screamed, and they all pushed forward slowly, less walking than dragging their legs with each step.

As the swarm moved closer, until it started to cross the ravine across from Caera, the sound of their moans and shifting feet grew louder and louder. Christ, they were slow, but Caera knew from experience it was best to hide and not stir them up, or they'd made a racket. All demons were intimately familiar with the screams of remnants, but Caera remembered what it sounded when a roaming swarm like this was triggered. Wails would turn into howls. Screams would turn into shrieks. Other demons would come investigate. No thank you.

The sound was disturbing. An unending chorus of dragged, emaciated feet sliding over stone, and the noises. Caera had been around plenty of humans in her time, some betrayers, some not. They didn't make those sorts of noises, even when they died painfully.

Caera and her friends waited, and waited, and the swarm eventually passed. It took a damn while, but it did, and the three of them breathed easy as the noise died.

"That, is scary," Marquez said.

Kia nodded as she climbed out of the ravine, and found a higher perch of rock. In typical gorgala fashion, she stretched out her wings once, hooked them around her neck and shoulders like a cape again, and squatted as she stared out into the darkness.

"Very scary. I can still see them moving, like some sort of giant blob."

"Very," Caera said. "Ever see those zombie TV shows in the scrying pool?"

They both nodded. Those shows were freaky.

It wasn't like remnants were dangerous. Except, when they were. She couldn't blame them. If half her body was submerged in stone or thorns, and she spent every single second of existence in utter agony, she'd manage something desperate, even with weak, emaciated arms. Imps and grems sometimes got swarmed by remnants they were scavenging on, got pulled down into a couple dozen waiting hands, and slowly ripped apart.

No worry about that with a tregeera, vratorin, or gorgala. But, still, she wouldn't want to have to tear her way out of a swarm of hundreds of remnants. Given enough time, even she'd get tired, and it'd be just like in one of those zombie shows where a human gets overwhelmed and eaten.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They went further out, past Thorn Mountain, and went into some tunnels. Death's Grip had hundreds of them, thousands, and a lot of them went for miles and miles. She didn't know if the other corners of Hell had so many caves and tunnels, but from what she heard, they all had their own interesting quirks. Everyone knew about False Gate, and the thousands of metal cathedrals and lava rivers. Maybe she'd get to see them some day.

The humans that ended up in Death's Grip usually went into the tunnels. It made sense. No one liked being exposed, and with demons roaming the surface, or gliding around, naturally humans found what cover they could. Which meant demons in Death's Grip had to get used to hunting underground, even the gliders like the imps, grems, and gorgalas.

Kia groaned as they descended into a tunnel, and climbed down, the tunnel turning into a fall that required serious claws to manage the rock faces. She wanted to be outside, gliding around and looking for humans stupid enough to stick their head out looking for goorts to eat. Too bad for her. Caera smiled up at Kia, stuck her tongue out at her, and earned another groan and snarl from her friend.

Down and down they went, until the fall angled, and instead they half slid, half climbed the tunnel, until it angled out again into another tunnel flat enough for walking. Plenty of amber veins pulsed in the stone walls, and thank God the tunnel was pretty big. More than wide and tall enough for Caera to stand up if she wanted, and for Kia to stretch out her wings. She wouldn't be gliding down here, but still.

Caera got down on all fours, and led the hunt. She didn't mind taking point. Kia and Marquez were a lot younger than her, and they listened to her. Being a leader was never Caera's intention, even of just two buddies, but if that meant she got to have someone watch her back so she could live another day and get some resonance in her belly, it was a good deal. And she liked them, damn it.

Caera sniffed at the ground. A lot of smells, some human, some demon. Some other shit too, fallo spiders and stone crawlers. She understood stone crawlers being in the tunnels; humans called them big centipedes. Fallo spiders, she didn't expect. Maybe someone harvesting the silk?

Eventually, as the three moved through quiet light of the tunnels, hiding behind large stones whenever they found some, they heard noises. Caera stopped, and stayed close to the ground as she listened. Remnants? She didn't smell them, and remnants always screamed, but these voices were casual. Humans? Maybe. But humans usually talked with urgency, or whispered. Whoever was talking ahead was talking openly. That meant demons. Deep voices, too. Big demons.

Caera listened close. Two voices. She took a deep breath of the stone. Hundreds of different smells, including some recent humans, but two smells stood out more than the others. Fresher.

She turned around and held up two claws. Kia and Marquez looked at each other, did a few gestures of their own, before nodding and pointing ahead past Caera. Okay then, they were going to follow their stomachs and keep up the hunt, even if that meant a run-in with a couple other demons. It wasn't like meeting some strangers down in the tunnels guaranteed a fight. It just often did.

Caera got up on two feet, and walked forward, tail gently weaving behind her as she came out into a large room. It'd been decades since she'd came hunting around this side of Thorn Mountain, and she doubted she'd ever came down into this specific tunnel. She didn't recognize it, and she didn't recognize this room, and she sure as fuck would have if she'd ever seen it before.

A big cavern with huge amber veins that reached up to a giant ceiling covered in stalactites, each pulsing with their own vein of amber. So many spikes, glowing, it almost looked like some weird sort of colossal chandelier from the surface. The floor was flat and smooth, carved out by whatever demons used the chamber, probably thousands of years ago. Surprising Hell hadn't shifted around and broken the room up in all that time, but nope, the floor was absolutely smooth.

The walls were covered in symbols, Estian, carved into the rock in big, smooth indentations.

All Hail Valzanal, Queen of Destruction, Mistress of Lust, Warrior of yada yada yada.

Statues sat along the walls, most of them in some sexual position, most of them with a giant dick, whether or not their living versions came with them. Case in point, a stone statue of a tregeera, crawling along on all fours, had a giant dick dangling until it touched the floor. A fujara, one of the terrible four, sat with legs and arms spread, waiting for someone to hop on her giant dick fujara weren't supposed to have. Not all of the statues of demons were like that, but it was definitely a lot of dick.

There were other statues, males with big, long dicks. Caera had seen caves like this before, with statues made of either stone, or dark meera metal. Usually they had a bunch of imps and grems fucking them, and each other. No imps or grems in this chamber. But there were two devorjin in the middle of the room.

Devorjin, big dumb brutes. No spikes, no tail, just nine-foot-tall titans of muscle and meat, with faces like skulls. Which, she had to admit, were kinda handsome, in that scary 'demon face' way humans often accused them of. Super defined jaws and eyebrow ridges with big eye sockets, hiding small, dark, hungry eyes. Yeah, skull faces. Unfortunately, the dumb brute look kinda ruined it.

The two of them were squatted around a few dead humans, and munched on their rewards for a successful hunt. There were some sticks and rocks, and what looked like some goort leather tarps. No devorjin would need that. More likely the devorjin came in through one of the other tunnels connecting to the room, and the humans couldn't get past them. Free lunch.

"Hello," Caera said, and both brutes turned to face her. "My friends and I are just passing through."

Both devorjin stood up to their full height. Giant chests, covered in blood. Attractive, if not for the stern, borderline angry look the two of them gave Caera, and then Kia and Marquez when they stepped out from the tunnel.

"Leave," the one on the right said. She didn't recognize either of them, but judging from the size of them, they'd been alive for at least a little while. Old enough to be deadly, but not as old as Caera. Unfortunately, devorjins were stronger than tregeeras, or gorgalas and vratorins. She had to play this diplomatically.

"It's a bunch of tunnels, right?" She gestured to the tunnel entrances on the other side of the room. "First time passing through this area, and we didn't know other demons hunted here. But we're hungry, and we're not going to leave empty handed. Let us pass." A show of strength and will, to maybe earn some respect from the devorjin.

They both grunted, growled, and squeezed their big hands into giant fists. Okay, so, a show of strength could also put them into a fighting mood instead.

Kia held up a hand as she stood beside Caera. "Zel has a no-killing rule in place, devorjins. Remember? You can't touch us without dueling permission from Diogo, so--"

Apparently, the devorjins didn't care. They launched themselves toward Caera, mouths open, showing their teeth, drool, and plenty of the blood of the meals they'd just had.

Caera got down on all fours, and roared. How stupid did these devorjin have to be, to not recognize the devorjin skull on her shoulder.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"You two alright?" she asked.

Kia groaned as she pushed the devorjin off her. Marquez sank his claws into the big bastard's back, and helped pull him off. Heavy fuckers.

"I'm fine," Kia said, with the usual amount of venom she had when she'd just finished doing something she hated.

"I'm good," Marquez said, huffing and puffing.

Nodding, Caera looked down at the devorjin she'd dealt with. The big stupid bastard was dead, throat slit, and Caera's hands were absolutely drenched in blood.

"Been a while since I've killed one of these dickheads," Kia said. "Forgot how damn thick their skin is."

Nodding, Caera crouched down on her kill, and got to ripping. Kia wasn't wrong. Devorjins really had some of the thickest, darkest hides, and even the soft places like their stomachs and throats were darker and thicker than on most other demons. Cracking open his chest and getting the heart out was not easy, and strong as Caera was, she still had to rely on the sharpness of her claws to get through his chest and bone.

A glance back showed Kia and Marquez working together, breaking ribs and tearing demon hide, until they had access to their kill's heart.

Nodding to each other, smiling like three happy idiots, they walked over to the wall of the huge chamber, and sat down between some of the statues.

"Any witnesses?" Kia asked.

Caera shook her head. "Doesn't seem like. Ugh, what a pain in the ass. Zel's gonna show up some day and ask Diogo why Gorzen Mountains' numbers are low."

Marquez nodded as he settled down near a statue of the gorujin, like the one Caera had seen earlier. The seven-foot-tall demon looked like a child next to the ten-foot-tall brute.

"Hopefully she gives up on the idea."

"Won't happen," Kia said. "Zel's got something in mind. And she's gonna get us all killed going for it." Marquez and Caera frowned at her, but she just shrugged. "You know I'm right."

"Yeah," Marquez said, "but we just kicked some ass. Why you gotta bring down the mood?" They all went quiet for a moment as they took a second to admire that fact, and the two massive, resonance-filled, dripping hearts they'd won as their prize.

"You're right," Kia said, and she licked her lips.

Marquez did too, and got ready to bite into his, but something caught his eye.

"This," he said as he gestured to the statue of the gorujin beside him, "is one very nice looking penis."