Emerald Forest Ch. 02

As he picked up his staff, the dagger returned cleanly to Anna's hand, while Boggins frantically brushed his hands across his body, as if trying to dislodge invisible clumps of termites.

"What happened is you both failed spectacularly," she spat.

"The only reason I'm not a sex slave to the ugly squid man down there right now is that it turns out he and his brood can't stand silver."

"Silver...? Makes sense, I suppose... But I never thought..." Octavius murmured.

"Did you know about this?" Anna demanded, waggling the knife in an accusing manner.

"I... had a theory..." Octavius began, avoiding her angry stare by looking pointedly into the distance.

"But I didn't know if it would work! If I was wrong, we'd be a pile of bloody flesh and you'd still have been caught."

His explanation did little to soften Anna's stare.

"Come on, we'd best be getting to the..."

Octavius stopped mid-sentence.

"What is it?" Boggins queried.

"Look," said Octavius.

"They've retreated. All the demons... they've retreated."

As the group looked around, they saw Octavius was right. No lust sprites crawling across the ceiling – even Ashmedai seemed to have left the area.

Anna sheathed her dagger in bemusement as she rearranged her robes.

"We've got a clear line to the exit," said Octavius.

"In the absence of a better plan... RUN!!!"

The group broke into a sprint as they made a beeline for the exit, neither looking nor caring what was behind them.

In seconds, they were past Ashmedai's previous position and had entered the exit tunnel through which sunlight filtered in.

Octavius had stepped into the rays of sunlight that fell on the last stretch of rock when he looked round with suspicion. The group was one down.

"...Anna..." he murmured.

"We lost her?" Boggins frowned.

"We've got to go back in," Octavius said, unsheathing his own silver dagger.

"But this time I've got a plan..."

***

The pair found Anna not too far from the end of the exit, just outside of the reach of the rays of sunlight.

She was still standing – just – but behind her stood the all too familiar form of the demons they'd tried to escape from.

The lust sprite had one hand inside Anna's robe, toying with the apprentice's breast, while the other was planted firmly between her thighs and was busy expertly playing the girl's sex like an instrument.

Anna was simply leaning back into the red devil, eyes closed shut and sighing in pleasure.

"...yes...yes..." she sighed.

"s'nice..."

The lust sprite smiled wickedly over her shoulder.

Octavius and Boggins hugged the walls at the side to avoid detection and positioned themselves behind the sprite.

Octavius lowered the dagger to the ground.

"What-what are you doing?!" Boggins asked frantically.

"Just trust me," said Octavius, as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a leather belt.

He crept up behind the demon, paused, and as the lust sprite upped the tempo to drive Anna over the edge, he pounced.

Knocking the sprite to the floor, he tied the belt round her neck, threaded its length through the buckle, and using his knife, created a new notch and cut off the excess material.

The voluptuous demon kicked and struggled beneath Octavius, her large breasts flailing nearly as much as her arms as she tried to fling herself free.

Octavius jumped off her and leapt back, holding his hands out defensively.

"Stop!" he barked.

To Boggins' surprise, the lust sprite – who had been about to lunge for the wizard – rocked back on her feet and stood staring at him furiously.

"I forbid you from interfering with the minds of me or any of my travelling companions," Octavius instructed the demon.

Incredibly, the demon nodded in acquiescence before a confused frown spread across her face.

"What... haff you done tooo mee?" she snarled.

"It's called a 'devil snare'," Octavius explained.

"I forbid you from taking that belt round your neck off. It's enchanted with a spell that forces any being conceived unnaturally to comply with the wishes of the enchanter.

"Doesn't work with every demon, of course. Some are too strong to be bent into shape by such enchantments, but I guess we're lucky yeh just a lowly, run of the mill minion, aren't we?"

The lust sprite curled her lips and hissed angrily, while running her fingers along her 'collar' as Octavius chuckled to himself.

Anna had emerged from her daze and was sheepishly putting her robes back on for the second time. Boggins went to check on her.

"You jusssst wait, warlock..." the lust sprite was snarling as the two walked back to Octavius.

"I'll get out of thisss... ssspell.... and when I do, I'll find your deepest, darkest dessiresss and drive you insane with lussst..."

"Well, that sounds like something to look forward to," Octavius replied dismissively.

"For now though, yeh'll be travelling with us, and I'm ordering you to protect me and my companions from harm. Yeh won't be casting yeh demonic influence on us, do yeh understand?"

The sprite scowled and nodded her head almost imperceptibly.

"Good," Octavius said, with a satisfied nod of his own. "From now on, you'll do as we command.

"Follow me, then, everybody."

And with that, the wizard led the way into the forest once more, with Anna and the very angry, but very bound, demon hot on his heels.

Boggins giggled like a schoolboy behind them.

"Hey, demon... pick your nose!" he shouted at the sprite, who instantly stuck a digit in her right nostril, much to his amusement.

"Don't be so immature!" Anna chided as the group walked out into the sun.

"You can take your finger out now," she said to the sprite, who did so with a grateful flourish and a hard stare at Boggins.

"What's your name?" she said to the group's new companion as they carried on with their trek.

"Name...?" asked the sprite, as if the concept was alien to her.

"Yes, you must have a name, surely?" persisted the apprentice.

"I have sssso many sisstersss... What usse isss a name?"

"So you're telling me your kind don't have names for each other?"

The sprite shook her head.

"Not that we should sssspeak aloud."

"Well... how about from now on, we call you... Fera. It was my great-grandmother's name. It means... er, hunter..."

Anna blushed at her own choice of name for the demon, the memory of her near capture still fresh in her mind.

"Asss you wisssh, human..." 'Fera' smiled wickedly.

"Happy as I am that you two are getting along so nicely, don't forget that 'Fera' here was about to whisk you away into a life of debauchery not ten minutes ago," Octavius warned from over his shoulder.

"Don't get too attached to a monster that feeds off your own descent into perversion."

Anna just blushed even more profusely before increasing her pace to put distance between herself and her new friend, who grinned from ear to ear.