Drip-Fed Pt. 11

It was a demon's every right to toy with the mortals. To indulge in the food. Food that didn't taste like ash and bitter corruption. Not that the latter taste bothered the warped forms of the immortal monstrosities anymore.

Turlesh ate to grow. He loved to grow. He loved to eat. He loved to eat tasty things. Bones were his favourite. Gnawing splinter for splinter off the outer layers, only to reach the marrow and the remaining taste of life within. There was no greater joy. Boneless Parasytes, he hated eating them, but alas, it was his obligation and what he had to do to nourish his Spark. To expand his mind and power.

With time, he didn't know how much, he came to evolve. A Fleshgorger, a Tempths class demon, was his second stage. Then a Boneseeker, a Dergil class demon, fitting given his favourite meal. He had become strong at that stage. Stronger than most of his kin. It was when she took interest in him. The ancient beauty that governed one of the thicker roots of hell. One whose presence made bark and caverns tremble. She invited him to the Court of Massacre.

He died and died again for her entertainment. Never did he feel more distressed when he disappointed her, never greater joy than when he made her laugh. Glorious were those days, where he was summoned into a delicious world only to return to one of bloodshed. To fight not only the despicable Parasytes, but also the demons that followed ones of the lesser Unreavs -- one of those other individuals that dared to claim they were as fantastic as the Empress of Blood.

Further, he grew. A Fearseeker, a Deslors class demon, was the fourth shape he transitioned into. After aeons spent in the Court of Massacre, the Empress of Blood took renewed interest in him when he killed a Sparkeater all by himself. She elevated him from a mere member of the court to one of her elites. She wrote his name into her book, for all Warlocks to see that he was one of her favourites.

That was how he met him. How he came to be summoned by the Master. A man who wielded the forces of the Hellroots foolishly but with great aptness. He served as one of four demons for the Master. His fellow Fearseekers, Terlash and Purlesk, and the Mindeater Kurlesh. All of them chosen by the Empress, Jolene who whispered of truth into Apotho's ear. He travelled with two, an angel and a human of great power. Three that travelled far and wide, a man and two women.

Turlesh had never tasted anything as delicious as that human's ribs. So close to the heart, so delicately thin yet so filled with fickle power. A taste near divinity, drenched in betrayal and heartache, overseen by a no longer foolish Master.

There was enough power in her flesh to bring all of them to that next level. It had been a day to remember, when all four of them had become Deathhounds, Tharnatos class demons, and on which the essence of the angel had been reforged into a core for the Empress to reincarnate in the worlds she was entitled to walk.

'All for the Empress and her chosen Master,' Turlesh thought, as he stepped out of the portal. Months ago it had delivered them from this tainted Leaf to the one closest where Apotho had put up his base. Now the Deathhound had to retrace their steps. He had to return to the point where Apotho had separated from that abominable creature. That confusing thing, clearly from this world but capable of devouring Sparks. Turlesh's instincts didn't tell him to hate Apexus. His Master, however, did and that was reason enough.

He started running, passing through the corrupted landscape of the tainted world. Gnarled trees, freely roaming demons, and the fragrance of death in the air, all the signs of a veritable paradise of violence and power. How Turlesh wished he could stay. He was the strongest here. He could break what he wanted to, command who he wanted, eat whatever or whoever he wanted, but alas, he wasn't here to claim the demon's right to enjoy the fruits of the silver tree.

Before his four eyes, the world was a field of potential slaughter and through it ran the veins of magic. With all six of his limbs, he took hold of one such vein, used as his footing to traverse over a ravine in the scorched world. A Deathhound couldn't fly, but they could use their innate closeness to the Omniverse and the source of magic to manoeuvre in ways lesser beings couldn't consider. Many of the Tharnatos class demons had that ability.

Within a day, he had crossed the entirety of the Leaf and emerged on the Branch of the Omniverse. He raised his long head, let his pointy tongue curve out of the many teeth, and tasted air and magic and the power that connected everything. The origin to which all could be traced back and from which everything could be found. It was the Common Art of some demons, those that became Deathhounds most commonly, Fate Tracking, that allowed them to follow the steps of anyone they had met before.

The drawback of this incredible ability was written into its description: Turlesh did not know where the chimera slime currently was, only the path he had taken to get there. Even on that path, the Deathhound only knew the last step he had witnessed. Like a dog following a scent trail, Turlesh had to track the line Apexus had left in the nature of the Omniverse.

Once Turlesh had realized the direction of Ctania, he started running again. He didn't need rest, not while he merely ran over the Bark. That his body oozed magic and attracted Parasytes didn't bother him. The little ticks that scurried around everywhere were no threat to him. He had devoured them in the hundreds of thousands in his life. Their mass was only dangerous if he stopped to let them attach. As it was, he was like a magnet who moved quicker than his attraction pulled. The Parasytes scurried in his direction but were left behind before they could reach him, resuming their largely dormant state.

Turlesh would have loved to cleanse the brilliant tree of these pests, but he had his orders.

Similarly, when he reached Ctania, he would have loved to silence all of those screams. Heralry reacted to him with alarms and fearful screams. Survivors and rebuilders equally cowered before him. "Wiiiiissssssse," he hissed at the guard who hastily abandoned his post by the stone structure that oversaw the Stem. 'Terlash and Purlesk would waste time massacring these lesser ones, but not I. I am Empress' loyal servant. My time is Master's time. Wasting Master's time is a sin,' the demon thought, as he advanced on the plaza, his snout lowered.

He couldn't withhold the occasional cackle. Burned into the ground were the ashes that remained of those sacrificed to summon Jolene. Those that remained alive, those that came to repopulate the Leaf, they didn't know that the mere remainder of such a circle altered the world. Not by a lot, misfortune wouldn't come to their crops and the children wouldn't be born with horns. No, it was nothing that overt. It would have needed power and a new purpose to be used like that. Still, its presence would invite a stray, corrupted Spark to manifest as flesh. People would disappear in the dead of night. Just a few of them over the course of a decade. Enough to fill the dark streets with uncertainty.

Where Apotho dwelled, however short, the world was altered. Such was the presence of one who was the right of creation removed from divinity.

"S-stop right there, monster!" a brazen fool declared.

Turlesh moved one of his eyes at the adventurer. A man clad in simple grey armour, wielding a spear. The secondary lid cleaned small amounts of dust from the demon's eye. The black slit in the red sclera moved on, just as the demon continued to move.

"I-I said..." shouts all around, demands of further away people that the adventurer should stay back. Then, a laughable attempt at a stab. The iron didn't even leave a mark in the leathery skin of the Deathhound.

Turlesh kept moving. It had been somewhere close to the centre of the plaza. He could feel it, he was close to the start of the trail. He could also feel the continued stabs by the spear. The desperate attempts of vengeance by a man that was not strong enough to enact it.

"W-what are you doing?!" another man shouted and ran towards them. He wore flashy clothes, a fine blue vest and white pants, both shining in the summer sun of the Leaf. "Get away from that thi- AAAAAHHHH!" He screamed, as the tail of the Deathhound grabbed his ankle.

"Too briiiiight," Turlesh screeched, dragging the man after him. He ignored both the desperate kicks be the second and the continued stabs by the first man. Still, the crowd around screamed for them to get away, all too cowardly (or wise, in this instance) to move closer than fifty metres. "There you are," the Deathhound gloated, when he found the trail.

Happy, he raised his tail and smacked it back down with such force that the head of the second man cracked on the stone. Impotent rage echoed from the first adventurer, first in response to the death, then to Turlesh absent-mindedly biting the head off the corpse. The many canines that made up the Deathhounds maw messily reduced the skull into a gory mass of bone shards and brain matter. While he munched, the dull-armoured man continued his useless nuisance.

Since Turlesh didn't want the rest of the brightly coloured corpse anywhere near him, he discarded it by tossing it at the adventurer. Metal screeched over stone, when the two bodies, one still alive, slid over the pavement.

He focused on the trail and resumed his movements. The people of the rebuilding Heralry looked as the demon they feared vanished back up the Stem. Ten minutes of horror ended as abruptly as they had come. Most felt relief that only one brazen fool had died.

Turlesh was back on the Branch before long. It had been a while since he tracked someone with his Art. He would need to get the hang of it again. That would slow him down for a couple of days, but that didn't ultimately matter. The slime would stop sometimes, he would be slowed by the need to eat or to rest, by idle conversations or the desires of the flesh. The demon would keep moving, running, following the trail in deadly pursuit. He would be obedient. He would make it as quick as possible.

The Empress and her Master would be pleased.

Aclysia was walking along, Reysha was hungry and Apexus was famished. The metal fairy was largely resistant to the cold and therefore operated like normal. Reysha, because of her desert upbringing, was somewhat used to extreme cold and otherwise functioned as a normal person would. Her hunger was solely thanks to the lack of prey in the snowy landscape. Apexus' famishment was sustained for the same reason, but the origin was slightly different. The way he heated his body, greater as it customizability may have been, also cost him more energy to sustain against the cold.

Humanoids, generally, had a way to retain heat where it mattered, their organs for the most part, while Apexus was the same temperature throughout his liquid innards. At the same time, his body heat was exclusively produced by a central source. Humanoids generally produced heat as a beneficial by-product of other activities, such as movement or metabolism. The human body producing heat for heat's sake was rather rare and, usually, unwelcome. Humanoids created heat while running fast; Apexus created heat to run fast.

As long as the environment was moderately warm and there was enough food around, that difference was ignorable. Stomping through the snow for hours on end, however, left the slime feeling intense hunger. His entire body felt heavy and sluggish, despite his body temperature being up and his movements as fast before.

"How much further?" Apexus wanted to know.

"You've asked that fifteen times in the past two hours," Reysha pointed out.

"You kept count of darling's complaints?" Aclysia asked. She had done the same, which was why she was surprised that the tiger girl had gotten the number correct. Their reasons for counting differed immensely though.

"Not like there is anything else to fucking do, is there?" Reysha asked, stomping after Apexus. The snow was almost knee deep, but not dense enough to walk on. That Apexus, being the broadest and strongest of the lot, was the group's snowplough furthered his energy conservation issues. The two girls walked behind him. "There's white everywhere, except for there," she pointed at the mountains, peeking out of the snow in their dull grey, "and there," she pointed at the ocean, about fifty metres to their right, a greyish blue expense sparkling under the sunlight. As for the morning star itself, it was progressively getting closer to the horizon. Soon, its rays would tint towards purple.

"I could freeze," Apexus suggested and listened to Reysha laugh. "That was not a joke."

"I know," the still giggling redhead responded. "I am mocking our misery."

"Is it an imminent threat?" Aclysia asked.

"No, I could continue for another day, if I had to," Apexus told her. "I'd have to shrink in the process though."

"No shrinking!" Reysha declared. "Shrinking means I have to look at a less muscular man and a less muscular man means that fine ass in front of me is getting diminished. Therefore, no shrinking!"

"You could switch positions with Aclysia, if you want to look at a fine ass," Apexus suggested. "Anyway, can I get an answer?"

"It remains the same, darling," the angel answered patiently. "We are in the correct area; we just need to locate the proper entrance."

Apexus grumbled, a sound like stones rolling down a hill. "If we could at least fly there," he complained, taking the next ploughing step with kicking intentions. The dungeon entrance was, according to description, located under an overhang at the mountainside. From above, such a landmark would be near invisible, covered by ice and snow, and the cold winds made flying low equally difficult.

"Flying in this weather sucks," Reysha pushed back, "I've barely got feeling back in my face."

"Everything in this weather sucks," the slime remarked, straining his eyes for the dungeon or something, anything, he could eat. "What god would create a place where not even trees grow?"

"A sadistic one," Reysha said.

"One with an understanding of the beauty of nature by itself," Aclysia offered an alternative opinion.

"Pretty hard to appreciate any kind of beauty while I'm freezing my butt off."

"...Is that an immediate danger?" Apexus asked, earnestly alarmed by the prospect of Reysha's rump losing its squishier aspect.

"No," Reysha giggled, only to then let out a long-frustrated sigh. "This is where I would usually tell you to warm me up by clapping those cheeks, but we'd probably die if we fucked out here."

"Wouldn't be a nice experience," Apexus mimicked and they stomped on.

By the time they finally found the dungeon entrance, the sky had a fervent purple tint to it. That they didn't have to march through the night was a relief, as it would only have gotten colder.

Even walking, the entrance had been difficult to see. Between the snow that covered the mountains and what covered the ground, it had been little more than a vertical gash in the white. That had been enough, however, for Apexus' keen and prey-searching eyes to spot it. When they finally stepped into the cave and no longer needed to plough with every step, they already felt warmer.

That wasn't to say that it was actually warm, though.

"I hope snow goes fucking extinct," Apexus cursed, his rare use of a slur causing both of his women to look mildly surprised. He didn't respond to the raised eyebrows, only pat the remaining powdery white from his pants and tried his best to get it unstuck from his soles.

"Should we perhaps take a break?" Aclysia suggested. Her companions looked exhausted and the overhang they were currently in provided satisfying protection from the elements. Between the start of the overhang and the entrance of a dungeon, an arch of bricks inlaid into the mountain, lay a ten-metre space that could be used to camp. Wrapping up in their blankets for a few hours would serve to gather some energy.

"I need food," Apexus overruled the suggestion in an authoritative tone. "Desperately."

"I could go either or, but I won't complain about a meal," Reysha agreed, and so the three headed into the dungeon proper.

A couple of metres past the entrance and the stone walls were steadily replaced by glowing cold ice. The substance created the light necessary for the underground expedition and gave the dungeon its name. Apexus brushed over the wall with his bare hand.

"Hnnngghhhh," Reysha made a wanton sound, when she smelled the pheromones in the cold air. "Hellroots, I love that aroma."

"I dislike that we have to resort to it," Aclysia had a different take on the matter.

"Better than to get lost," Apexus said. "I'll stick to the right walls as we go on, as agreed."

Aclysia just sighed and nodded. "I would still prefer to have a reliable map."

"Dunno, I kinda prefer it that way," Reysha let her know. "Kinda defeats the mystique of spelunking if ya already know where you're going."

White Ice was a dungeon that shifted in its form over time. The tunnels that cut through the magical ice wound here and there, became wider and narrower, and just generally shifted. A map made during one trip would be minorly inaccurate after a week and practically useless after a month. Since the dungeon was also remote, nobody bothered to keep up to date maps and the guide only laid out what enemies could be fought inside and what kind of environmental hazards to expect inside.

"What're ya so afraid of anyway?" Reysha asked. "We know we're not being followed."

"For now," Aclysia responded. "Times might change. I admit it's pathological, but I feel more comfortable when we leave the minimum necessary traces."

"This is a minimum necessary trace," Apexus asserted and took his hand off the ice. Some water stuck to his palm. "I don't know how long the smell will stay on ice anyway."

"The dungeon at least has an exit shortcut, so it won't matter too much if it gets washed away," Reysha said, while putting her weapons on. She was wearing her proper armour underneath her winter clothes, but the weapons had been kept stored in the bags until now. The daggers she strapped to her waist and the axe to her back. The warpick remained with Aclysia, who would pull it out only when necessary. It was too cumbersome to carry around all the time. "We just want the smell for orientation."

"Might still mean we're running in a circle," Apexus pointed out.

"Supposedly, the dungeon is of moderate size, so let's hope that won't be an issue," Aclysia said. She noticed both Reysha and Apexus suddenly raise their heads. Their furred ears turned and finally settled in the same direction. Their eyes soon followed. 'They must hear something,' the metal fairy thought. When the two predators looked at each other, the angel followed as quiet as she could.

They stopped in the sneaking attempts fairly quickly. The floor was made out of ice and rock in almost equal measure and trying to walk silently was near impossible. Apexus took the front, following down a side tunnel, deliberately slipped down a segment, and soon stepped into a chamber.

The chamber itself was largely unspectacular. A larger cavity between tunnel segments, with a milky white crystal growing out at the centre that seemed different from the surrounding ice in the tint of its colouration and the smoothness of its reflecting facets.

What was interesting, however, was the creature eating that crystal. It was a bear in practically every way, with blue, rocky spikes growing out of its spine and shoulder joints. It had already noticed the newcomers and growled at them, even as it continued its meal.

Despite its passive behaviour, for a dungeon monster, it did perfectly meet the description of a White Ice Bear. Like the dungeon itself, it was rather simply named. Its abilities were supposed to be minor ice magic and respectable physical power. That it didn't attack outright was due to its current occupation. Dungeon monsters, despite their purpose of being stumbling blocks for adventurers, were also animals. These crystals were the dungeon's way of nourishing what spawned inside it in the absence of 'fresh meat' and the White Ice Bear seemed more interested in finishing one meal than to try and hunt another.