The Squire and the Succubus (P)

"How do I look?" Sam asked, beaming.

"Like I want to get you out of that outfit and on my cock all over again," Damion said, beaming – his tail wagging happily, thumping against the sofa he was lounging on with a ratta-tata pattern.

"Thanks?" Sam blinked.

"If this Dart person is really that dangerous, you might be under armored," Malik said, standing up. He frowned as he walked around Sam. "Armor doesn't care if someone hits you with a magic missile. Or if you get roasted with a fireball."

"No one is stupid enough to use a fireball in Sigil," Damion said.

"Why not?" Vela asked. "Those demons were more than willing to-"

"Devils," Damion and Malik said at the same time.

"Zuhwhu?" Sam asked, her tail lashing from side to side. "They're the same thing, aren't they?"

Malik gentle rapped on her temple with one knuckle. "No. God, we were ever this Clueless?" he asked his brother, his hands resting on his hips. Sam glared at him.

"Maybe?" Damion shrugged. "There are two kinds of fiends. Well, okay, there are bunches of kinds of demons, but they're split into two big groups. There are demons - T'narri – who are chaotic and wild and unpredictable." He held up his paw, stopping Sam before she could ask any questions. "And then there are devils – also known as Baatezu – who are lawful and orderly."

Sam frowned. "People keep calling me a T'narri. So, succubuses- succubises...sucu-"

"Succubi," Malik said.

"Whatever!" Sam threw up her hands. "So, I'm part T'narri?" She frowned. "Isn't that impossible? I mean, I'm a paladin. I serve goodness, law and order. But T'narri are the exact opposite."

"Well, you're part human," Malik said, smiling at her. His hand slid along her back – and despite the chainmail and the leather armor, his touch sent a spreading wave of electrical desire through her. Sam's eyes went hooded and she breathed in his musk – remembering the feel of his brother, knotting her. Her thighs pressed together and she shook her head. She didn't want the Need right now. No, wait, she thought – and remembered how she had handled her raw, rampant lusts before. She had taken that energy and channeled it into beating people black and blue on the training fields. It was why she was here in the first place: She had impressed Sir Aldus, and he had taken her on as a squire...

She breathed in, then breathed out.

"And to be human is to have a choice," she said, nodding.

"That is what differentiates them from us," Damion said. "My bro and I? We don't really have a choice – we have to help the downtrodden. Why, we could get summoned at-"

Sam, who had been looking down at adjust her belt, looked up. "At wh-" She stopped, blinking.

Damion and Malik were gone.

"WHAT!?" Vela sprang to her feet, her hands going to her head.

###

"Sirs, sirs!" An old, quavering, female voice warbled from overhead. Damion slowly looked up – his paw rubbing along his head, trying to clear out the thudding pain that came from a sudden summoning. It was worse than blue balls, or jerking off while having a headache. He saw an old looking woman with glasses bigger than his clenched fists, pointing at a nearby tree with her cane. "My poor kitten, Mittens, he got caught up there, and I really need some help."

Damion looked at Malik.

Malik snarled at him and spoke – in Celestial, so the old woman wouldn't be alarmed: "You just had to open your big fucking mouth, bro."

###

"Oh gods, what are we going to do!" Vela wailed, her hands going to her forehead, tugging her hair back, which caused her forehead to strain and her eyes to open wider." What are we going to do – they were going to track Dart!"

"Well, uh," Sam gulped. "Wait! I know!" She grabbed at her chainmail and started to tug it off, moving desperately fast.

Vela blinked. "Fucking me is not going to help, Sam!"

"I-" Sam stopped, working the chain over her head and then holding it out – glaring at Vela. "I'm not going to bang you! No, hold this."

Vela looked confused – but soon her arms were piled up with chainmail surcoat, leather leggings, boots, sheath, sword. Everything that Sam had gotten from the two Hounds (as they had pointed out that shapeshifting to have armor defeated the point of having armor in the first palce, as every swordblow that the "armor" absorbed would be her own skin) and everything that Sam had carried with her to Sigil. Then, standing naked in the doorway to the Hound Archon's apartment, Sam spread her arms, closed her eyes and shifted. Fur spread over her body and she shrank forward, her palms touching to the ground. Her nose extended outwards and her tail shortened, and soon, she was looking up at Vela.

Vela blinked a few times.

Sam was a squat hound – low to the ground – with a triangular face and a thick spread of belly fur and a utterly gormless face. She looked like a good solid kick would send her halfway out of Sigil.

Vela snorted. Then giggled. Then laughed – before being cut off with a yelp as Sam bit down on her ankle. Her telepathic communication echoed in Vela's mind: I never spent any time with the hunting hounds, I had to base this off one I knew!

"Yes, but a corgi?" Vela squeaked.

Shut up! Sam sent back – putting her tiny snout to the ground and sniffing as she started to waddle out of the apartment. The first thing that struck her was the difference being a foot high and mostly 'seeing' the world through scents made in her appreciation of Sigil's slum – called the Hive. Her nose filled with the smell of the dying and the dead, with vomit and refuse, with the scent of old sex from alleyways, with the squirming rats, with the food cooking in unprotected stovetops. Her ears flicked back and she growled – shaking her head. She couldn't pick up anything here. She looked back at Vela.

Vela! Lets go to the tavern!

The two made double time towards the tavern – and once inside, Sam saw that the damage had been repaired in a remarkable speed. Several strange creatures floated around the ceiling, hammering new ceiling components into place. They looked like long-faced humanoids, with pale grey skin and flickering, flaming auras that spread around and above their heads – bracketed as they were by small, horn-like protrusions that surrounded the flames. They hovered above the ground, and used tools that looked bizarrely normal next to their own otherworldly natures. Sam shook her head and hurried to the bar. She sprang up onto one of the stools.

The bartender looked at her, then scowled. "You!"

Sam barked: How could you tell it was me?

"I've lived on Sigil all my born days, you piking succubus!" The bartender thrust his finger at her. "You cause any more trouble here and I'm banning you until you get penned in the Dead Book, ya jig?"

Sam barked: Not even slightly. Do you have anything that might have Dart's scent on it?

The bartender scowled. "Nay, I'm not in the habit of stealing the unmentionables of female patrons, that was the former owner of this piking bar."

Sam barked again: Then WHERE DOES SHE SIT!? Good GOD man, lives are on the line!

The bartender looked sour.

Vela, though, rummaged around the massive pile of belongings in her arms. She shifted the pile left, then right, then managed to transfer enough of the weight to her left arm, to give her right arm enough freedom of movement to drop five golden coins onto the countertop. Sam didn't even mind – even if they had been filched from the purse that the Hounds had given her as a 'thank you for letting us knot you' gift.

The bartender looked speculative.

Vela – her arm shuddering with the effort of holding up almost fifty pounds of equipment – dropped ten more coins.

"Over there," the bartender said, jerking his chin.

Sam sprang off the stool and rushed over, her tail wagging with excitement. The chair that Dart usually sat in hung thickly with a scent that Sam remembered – despite the fact that she had never smelled Dart as a dog before. She sniffed the scent again, then put her nose to the ground and started forward. This way! She thought to Vela, who groaned and followed her. The two of them emerged from the bar and shot through the streets at incredible speeds – considering how small Sam's legs were. The scent was old, but it hadn't been disturbed much. Sam found that altering her nose slightly let her grow more and more sure of what she was following – adding a bit of space here, a few extra bristles there. Soon, the trail was essentially painted on the ground.

She came to an intersection – and then squeaked as Vela put her foot before her.

"Sam!" Vela hissed.

Sam looked up – and saw two robed figures walking down the street. They didn't stand out. In fact, there were several other robed figures – several of them walking in the same direction, thought not in the same group. But Sam let her vision focus and brought out the strange spectral sights of her other vision. And under this view, one of the figures radiated a black aura that made Sam shiver all over. She hurriedly backed around the corner, then focused and grew back to her human size. She grabbed armor and clothes in a wild hurry.

"Vela," she whispered. "Whatever you do, don't get involved."

"Oh, no, no, no," Vela said. "I know when to hide. I'm hiding. Like, really far away."

"Good," Sam said, adjusting her chainmail surcoat.

"How are you going to stop them?" Vela asked.

"Uh, well, Dart's a crazy powerful wizard," Sam said. "So, I have two plans – plan A if she is stupid enough to let me get into melee with her, I'll just stab her. Plan B is a bit riskier but-" She stopped. A loud crack sounded from around the corner. Sam's eyes widened and she saw that the two robed figures were walking towards a portal that spread along one of the alleyways. One of the robed figures threw their hood back – revealing Dart. She held up a pouch, grinning at the other person she was with. Her contact, surely. Sam tensed, spread her wings, then flapped once. She shot into the air and she then beat again – aiming herself directly at the portal. She snapped out one wing at the last second, feeling her body shift momentum.

"So, I guess that's that," Dart said, grinning at her sales partner. "Enjoy Greyhawk, Mr-"

Sam's foot smashed into the side of the portal.

She had once held a portal open, grabbing and twisting it bodily. The same kind of energy crackled through her at that moment, and she felt her leg go numb. The portal snapped shut, leaving only a dirty Sigilian alleyway beyond, a pair of women who looked like they had been in the middle of a rather clumsy knife fight looking up the alleyway at the trio of people. Sam lay on her back, feeling pins and needles buzz through her leg. Dart looked down at her, her face a perfect picture of shock.

Then the other hooded figure reached up with a single gloved hand.

Threw their hood back.

Sam felt her belly turn to ice water.

Vecna.

Sam didn't know much...but she knew that name. She knew that eyeless face. That leering, death's head, looking out of the annals of time and history to make nightmares across dozens of worlds in hundreds of eras. Vecna the Archlich. Vecna, the Black One. Vecna, He Whose Touch Brings Devestation. Vecna, the ultimate evil. Vecna, he whose Name is Poison.

"Do I know you?" Venca asked, curiously.

"You. Don't. Know. When. To. Fucking. DIE!" Dart bellowed. Sam, at that moment, learned that when they said a Paladin would know no fear...they didn't know what the fuck they were talking about. She felt absolutely terrified. In fact, she was fairly sure that she would have wet herself, if she had had anything in her bladder to spend. But what Paladins didn't do was let that fear control them. She sprang to her feet, drawing her sword as Dart worked her palms in an arcane gesture.

"NOX!" Dart shouted.

Sam tensed – that same dart of white energy had knocked her completely unconscious for hours the last time it had been used on her. The sleep spell flew out and smashed into her chest – rippling outwards. Sam blinked, looking down at herself.

"Am I dreaming?" she asked.

"Confirmably no," Vecna said, sounding amused. "Dart, what is this...thing?"

"An irritating tool that doesn't know when it's not needed," Dart said, her palms crackling with energy. "Give me a second, Mr. Vecna, let me deal with this." Her fingers flexed and arcane armor flashed around her body. A swirling aura of strength filled her limbs and a glittering blade appeared in her left hand. She tossed it from palm to palm as she glared at Sam, her teeth showing in something that wasn't a smile.

"So, I guess it comes down to a duel between the warrior and the magic user," Sam said, trying to sound confident.

"No, this is an illusion," Dart said. "He's the one whose going to kick your ass."

Sam blinked – but then the huge hand clamped around her head and lifted her bodily from the alleyway. The sound of splintering wood and crunching stone filled the air, followed by shrieks and screams of shock as Sam grabbed onto the fingers clutching her head with one hand. She felt her neck straining against the weight of her whole body and started flapping her wings desperately to keep herself aloft as the immense, burly looking giant that had appeared in downtown Sigil looked at her.

"Wot me do?" the giant asked – voice booming out.

"Kill her! Kill the stupid succubus!" Dart shouted.

Vecna, meanwhile, had taken out his nail file and was using a telekinetic mastery of matter to fine the nails on his one surviving hand.

The giant shrugged and started to put pressure on Sam's head. The pressure was amazing – the pain intense. Sam screamed and plunged her sword into the giant's fingernail, working it underneath the curve of the nail and the skin beneath. Blood burst underneath the nail, darkening it and the giant bellowed, letting her go. Sam dropped from the grasp, her wings pumping, and then shot away from the giant as it shook it's hand.

"Owie!" it boomed.

"Fucking goddamn incompetent summons!" Dart snarled. She thrust out her palm and fired off a series of bolt of energy from her fingertip. Sam squeaked and tried to dodge, but the bolt slammed into her chest. Her chainmail creaked and she felt an aching bruise spread through her with the impact. The other bolts were whistling through the air – shooting towards her. Sam's eyes widened and she lifted up her sword, managing to catch one bolt with the edge of the sword. She knocked it into the ground, where it sent up a gout of dirt from the impact.

"Magic missiles aren't supposed to MISS!" Dart shrieked.

"Hah!" Sam grinned – then the other two magic bolts smashed into her, sending her staggering backwards.

The giant, who had been scratching his head quizzically, swept his palm through the air. It moved with seeming slowness, but Sam still had to fling herself upwards to evade being grabbed. The palm, missing, smashed into the roof of a building, shattering it downwards. Several dozen of those strange construction workers that Sam had seen earlier buzzed through the air. They didn't speak, but glowing symbols appeared above her heads. And from the number of! And :( that were showing up in red, she was pretty sure they were upset.

Sam grinned down at Dart.

"I hope that the king of this place doesn't get ticked off," she said. "You're breaking all his buildings."

Dart howled in fury and threw out her palm. A fireball shot from her palm and Sam evaded the worst of the blast, which echoed outwards over the city, causing another building to shake. Flaming debris fell into a market stall, sending people running screaming for cover. Another fireball illuminated the sky as Dart fired off blast after blast as Sam started to twirl and dart around – evading each shot, her body resistant enough to fire to make the glancing blows harmless. Dart screamed, her hands clenching into fists as magic crackled around her palms.

"Just DIE you low level slut!" She shouted.

"Aww," Sam said. "Look at what you did to big dumb and slow!"

She jerked her thumb down to the smoldering corpse of the hill giant. His face bore a look of mild surprise – and his torso looked like several large, smoking craters had been bitten out of it by another, even larger giant. Dart gawped, her eyes bugging.

"I guess it goes to show," Sam said, letting herself swoop down to land on the ground before Dart. "You should always check your-"

Dart charged forward. Her shoulder slammed into Sam's chest and sent the succubus sprawling backwards. Sam hit the muddy ground and skidded as Dart drew a dagger and leaped onto her, the blade flashing in the strange not-sunlight of Sigil. Sam put up one arm, trying to stop Dart from just impaling her in the throat as the other girl stabbed at her frantically, hissing.

"I-" The knife skittered along Sam's chainmail. "Am not!" The knife plunged into Sam's shoulder. Sam screamed in pain. "Going to!" The knife jerked free and Dart brought it down – skittering it along the edge of Sam's forehead. Blood sheeted along her forehead. "Let you! Stop! Me!" She stabbed down again. Sam brought her palm up – blocking the knife with her leather glove. The leather split, but the blade didn't do more than bruise the skin beneath. "I am going to get my fucking demiplane and I am going to be a fucking GOD, you understand!?"

Dart panted, her eyes blazing with fury.

Sam grinned, slowly.

"Hey, Dart," she said. "What's big, floaty and covered with knives?"

Dart blinked.

"Oh no," she whispered.

Sam's grin grew wider. "Cause I have no idea – but from the look on your face, I think you do."

She lunged forward. Her hand grabbed onto Dart's belt purse and she yanked it free with a jerk of her wrist. Her entire arm felt as if it was buzzing with the charge of a lightning bolt – she knew that she had the Apocalypse Stone. Then an immense shadow fell over the both of them.

When it faded, the sky overhead was cleared of any sign of...of...

Whatever that had been.

But Dart was gone.

###

Dart opened one eye.

She was kneeling in the center of a stone floor. Around her, she saw stairs. They were built into the walls and the ceiling, reaching through doorways. Impossible architectural flourishes connected flying buttresses with floors, while pillars remained perfectly straight, even as they twisted around one another like snakes. She was seated before a small brazier that crackled with a pale green flame – one that neither warmed her nor chilled her. She felt no thirst, not sense of hunger, nor sense of sleep. There was no respite. Not the respite of starvation, or the sweet release of death.

Not even the momentary oblivion of dreams.

Dart stood shakily.

She knew what this was.

The Lady of Pain – the Queen of Sigil, the only Power in the city that mattered half a wit - did not use prisons or executions to punish people who broke her ineffable laws.

She used the planes themselves.

Tucked somewhere in the vastness of the multiverse, the Lady had created a small demiplane just for Dart. A maze – one that would needed to be solved if Dart would ever see another living soul.

Dart's left eyebrow twitched.

Then she giggled.

Then she laughed.

And laughed.

And cried.

And cried.

###

Sam slowly stood up – brushing her palms along her butt, dust trickling to the ground. Blood trickled from half a dozen smaller wounds across her body. Her head ached. Her back hurt. Her tail hurt. But she had been right. There had been someone pretty powerful in charge of a place this weird. And while she hadn't known the rules and the mores and the laws of this place, she did know a very simple, very basic premise of law and order.