Chapter 9: Housebreaking a New Pet

Sha-Ra slunk into Wizard Isidore’s study, behind me like a cat sneaking into a room full of sleeping dogs!

Her fear was now evident as her, up until then, fearless continence kept her swaggering and dismissive of me. That was right up until we approached the study, and she realized where I was actually taking her. Then her presence seemed to shrike and diminish by the step.

Introducing the Orc warrior woman to the wizard was going to be more difficult than I suspected!

Isidore just sat at his study table, silent, amid his mounds of interrupted arcane studies and eyed our disruption fumbling into his inner sanctum.

I finally turned back and ever so gently scooped Sha-Ra’s right hand into both of mine, careful not to squeeze or tug, lest she smash my skull with the other. I gently coaxed her in, step by step as her eyes remained wide with terror affixed on the dread Master-Wizard.

I introduced Sha-Ra Bloodclaw to Isidore the Wizard once they were standing appropriately. It was just that getting there took an inordinate amount of time!

Sha-Ra whined a little and then settled down when she realized she was not going to be instantly incinerated by the Wizard’s gaze.

Isidore gently asked, “Sha-Ra, you are a warrior, yes?”

The Orc woman nodded that she was. But her trembling jerky fearful response had me considering taking a step away in case she wet herself, as her awestruck eyes indicated she might.

Isidore informed her calmly, “I am going to ask to inspect your scars as is a tradition among your people, accepting new members.” Sha-Ra blinked at him and Isidore the Wizard pressed, “Remove your garments and kneel, so I may inspect your battle scars.”

Shocked stiff, she mechanically did as asked.

I remembered my girls doing much the same with me, on the day we first bathed in the pond.

Isidore appraised Sha-Ra mostly inspecting her scars and their positioning towards the front. A few scars were in intimate and probably painful places like a slash across the soft meat above her left hip. And another that appeared to be a spear thrust into the upper flesh of her right breast leading into her armpit, and traveled outward to nick her inner arm. There were few on her back, the most significant being a slash across her left calf that probably came from someone taking a swipe at her from the side during a close-quarters armed scrum.

It was impossible to miss her beautiful natural musculature, right down to her jealousy-inspiring washboard stomach. Nor was it possible to miss her massive head-sized, completely natural, tits that hung high and proud on her chest, seemingly unaffected by gravity.

Wizard Isidore seemed pleased.

He complimented, “She is a fine example of her species, Alexander. I watched the four girls you brought to Azura’s service. They all seemed pleasant enough on your return journey. You have a good eye for things like this. I know that the flesh-for-cash trade on your plane is mostly taboo, but you have an eye for quality people. If that is not offensive.”

He was right.

I did not know how to take that, now that he brought it up.

This world was getting to me. I just used my hiring skills and did not even consider that I was buying and not hiring.

Isidore suddenly looked to the side, off his left shoulder slightly, drawing my attention back to reality. His eyes were distant and unfocused. He stared out at a point somewhere off my right shoulder, as I faced him.

Master Wizard Isidore immediately changed tack and doubled his rate of speech. He quickly offered, “Well, Sha-Ra Bloodclaw. I am familiar with your clan. You are feared warriors. We do not have much time. Quickly now, may I have your oath of loyalty and protection, as your bondsman and new master?”

Sha-Ra agreed, submitting quickly to what she must have perceived as overwhelming power, “Yes mighty Wizard. I will serve you to my absolute best ability until my death in your protection.”

Nodding Isidore accepted, quickly, “Good enough for now. We will review duties and benefits later. Get dressed quickly.” He waggled his hand off at a corner of the room, and absently told Sha-Ra, “Now off to that corner with you, and quickly pick a weapon from the pile that you would like to kill someone with.”

Perplexed, I turned, looking into the neglected corner.

I looked over and behind her, as Sha-Ra scooped up her skimpy garb, and sure enough, there was a pile of discarded weapons and armor there I had never noticed before in that deep corner.

Sha-Ra quickly rummaged, bending over and displaying her finely muscled rear-end, before pulling a nice large double-handed war ax. For a Human, it was a double-handed ax, but given her size she could probably use it one-handed.

When I looked back at him, Isidore rushed from behind his table and snapped his fingers at me, and then pointed, while barking, “Alexander, go to that shelf and fetch the large urn labeled ‘Salt’.”

Confused, I shrugged and moved to comply, seeing the large clearly labeled urn immediately.

While I was reaching for the large clay vessel Isidore snapped, “Sha-Ra, help me clear a ten paces by ten paces space in the middle of this room!”

Now I was concerned!

I rushed over, placed the urn securely next to the chairs on the front corner of his table desk, and shoved those chairs under the table too. Then immediately joined the furniture moving, shoving things as quickly as possible with the other two.

Isidore broke our work only by demanding, while he was shoving a short plush foot stool out of the way, “Alexander! Have you named a demon recently!”

I had to think about that one!

I mumbled, “I don’t think so.”

Then it popped into my head about the night prior, “Well, not named. I didn’t say it out loud. But last night, well I guess this morning, before we got Sha-Ra and the new Gobo-girls, I was with Vespera and realized that I am thankful and grateful to Lilitha Nyx for abducting and sending me here. Because otherwise, I would have never met my girls.”

Shaking his head in frustration, Isidore snapped, “Idiot!

“You have a lot to learn!

“Alex, some days you are attentive and intelligent. And then others you go and do something like this! You are entirely too powerful and dangerous to be left running around untrained in the world!” Before I could reply, and probably whine like a little bitch, Isidore demanded of me, “Fetch the salt urn!”

I quickly plucked it from the corner of the table where I placed it and turned around again.

Sha-Ra gazed around the room, her new two-handed ax balanced with familiar ease in one hand. She picked a corner and started pacing the ten paces demanded of us for the cleared area in the study. That was good, she was taking the initiative to support the Wizard’s orders.

Isidore Fireforge, Master Elemental Wizard, hurriedly snatched the urn from my hands and quickly began pouring a thin but complete salt circle encompassing the room’s cleared patch.

Sha-Ra now stood back war ax at the ready, her scandalous barbarian woman garb back in place, scanning the shadows of the room attentively.

Isidore spoke as he passed into the final quarter of his full, evenly drawn, salt circle, speaking to me like he would a child, “Alex, I will explain this to you slowly, as I finish. You, a powerful Pure-Blood Human, were mating with one of your girls. Enjoying shared carnal pleasures. Then while you were approaching the mutually orgasmic sharing of your life-giving mana with Vespera, you thought of the full name of a lust demon. And then to make matters worse, you offered that same lust-demon gratitude and healthy blessings. Both of these are powerful positive emotions that are antithetical to Demon-kind. Do you see the problem with that, Alex?”

I remembered those good feelings inside Vespera, and naming Lilitha Nyx, while I came, loving my little purple-haired girl.

We three must have felt the enraged shriek together. Because the Wizard, Orc warrior and I all looked in the same direction Isidore looked before the furniture movement started.

Angered, Sha-Ra got it first. Pointing the head of her ax at my face she roared, “Stupid Hummie! You just named her in thought again! Didn’t you? We all felt it this time!”

I groaned and slumped. Then eyes closed in consternation, accentuating each word, I barked, “Shit! On! Me!”

Carefully finishing the circle and closing it completely, Isidore began another slow careful pass, laying more salt gingerly atop the layer already there. He quipped, “Yes you did, Alex! All over yourself this time!” Shaking his head the Master Wizard ordered, “Neither of you enter this circle. And under no circumstances do you touch the salt line! If it breaks the elemental containment circlet will fail, and that enraged demon will rip her way free and escape with her full demonic power available to her.”

Sha-Ra was a boiling cauldron of rage, eyeing me, as Isidore approached the completion of his second circlet, reinforcing the salt circle. The powerful green-skinned Orc shook her ax at me threateningly, and demanded, “Wizard-Master! You Hummie too, but why do you tolerate stupid Hummie!”

Shaking his head, Isidore looked up, back and forth between the two of us, with a wry smile on his old face, dropping his long white beard slightly off to one side. He speculated, “I don’t know. He is a good cook, and wonderful with my Goblin-girls. They are happy and productive with him around.” He reiterated, admitting again, “And his food is really good!”

Pretty tired of having both of them hammering on me, I admitted, “There is a lot about this world I do not know!” Shaking my head I added, “I don’t even know why I could see that the winter storms kept coming in from the north and none of them entered the valley. The whole place stayed tepidly warm all winter.”

Isidore froze half in and half out of his salt circle eyeing me. He told the room, slowly like he was speaking to a very young child, “That is because I am old and I do not like cold winters. So I send them around until I am sure the harvest is in. Making sure the storms drop their precipitation into the hills and mountains surrounding us so the runoff melt-water feeds the valley the whole rest of the year. Then I accept the weather change when I can no longer justify tampering with the weather.”

I just blinked a few times and mumbled, “Oh.”

Sha-Ra found that very amusing at my expense!

Isidore just shook his head with a soft sigh.

Stepping outside the circle, Isidore ran his eyes over the full expanse, covering the whole circumference again. Then he reached over and gently grasped Sha-Ra’s arm and guided her back behind him.

Isidore Fireforge, Master Elemental Wizard, and Lord of the Obsidian Tower looked back the way the enraged cry had come twice before, gauged, and then muttered, “Any moment now.”

Frustrated Sha-Ra whispered, voice hard, over the Wizard’s shoulder, “Why not make him smart like you?! Then he won’t be dumb with the Gobo-girls’ pussy on his mind all the time!”

I could do nothing but stare at the two and shake my head in shame!

They had my number.

This really was my fault!

Isidore speculated, “I suppose I could take an apprentice.” He stroked his long white beard, looked over his shoulder at the Orc warrior-woman, and told her, “As a Human Pure-Blood he will have an easy command of magic in our plane.” Shaking his head now, he added, “I don’t know why I never really considered it before. I guess I just liked the food and did not want to disturb that arrangement. But, I suppose I will now need to suffer with Alexander as my apprentice also.” He looked directly at his new protector and told her, “Truthfully it will probably take a hundred years before he can work anything and manage not to blast his own foot off in the process.”

I exhaled and calmed myself. This was getting old!

Though well deserved.

Then I realized that I could feel Nyx falling into our midst.

Not with my eyes but with something much deeper.

I pointed out with two fingers on my left hand, feeling her rage plummeting towards us. I tracked her rapidly descending form as she shrieked through whatever ethereal plane she was traveling towards me.

My fingers fell slowly but accelerated with the approaching traversal as I felt her nearing the circle scribed with salt.

My fingers fell across the line.

In the next instant, the salt circle exploded into an angry pink, with malevolent purple, as white-hot sparking shards of blasted energy snapped and ricocheted around inside like burning bullets. The thousand sudden sounds all crashed together into a roiling disjointed but sudden thunderclap.

The enraged shriek ripped into our world with the light and abruptly ended with an indescribable thump of power slamming into some invisible barrier above the salt circle. That same crackle of power dissipated immediately as she snapped into reality.

Nyx arrived like a bird slamming into a large kitchen window at full speed. The thump was her arrival as she slammed into the elemental barrier created by the salt.

That was when I realized that my fingers were pointing directly at her, and I had not even thought about it during her arrival and sudden materialization.

I spoke before my brain-to-mouth filter engaged, and I offered to the Demon, “Hi, Nyxie.”

Enraged, she shrieked, “Don’t call me that!” She threw a punch into the barrier and smashed massive shards of white-hot energy that ricocheted around inside her circle with her.

The energy shards slammed sizzling into her wings and flesh, burning and searing away holes in each, leaving blackened smoking chunks ripped free. She flexed her horrifically burned fist, cracking the seared and blackened flesh.

She shrieked in impotent anger, glancing frantically left and right over my shoulders and studying my immediate surroundings. Her vengeful attention on me never wavered. Her eyes were vicious and impossibly angry. Her dark and malevolent energy crackled around her fists and rolled off her body in pulsing pink waves.

I spoke to the demon again. This time more calmly and deliberately, “Lilitha, I’m sorry about summoning you as I did.” Shaking my head at realizing my ignorance I offered, “I did not know that thanking you for how nice my life has become since Liam’s party would cause you such irritation.”

Lilitha Nyx shouted, the tip of her nose burning black at the end as she hit the containment field while shouting, “Ignorance is never an excuse! You will die screaming by my hand on the first anniversary of your arrival in the Plane of Legends, Human!”

That made me cock my head.

Staring at the extremely venomous snake behind the thick impenetrable enclosure wall. Her spell broke, and all that escaped my mouth was, “Hum, is it really All Hallows Eve again?”

She hissed, etching more angry pink energy from the elemental barrier with another vicious swipe that smashed away her claws into hundreds of white-hot burning shards. Nyx howled in pain shaking her badly burned fingertips and amputated nails. She hissed venomously, “Yes! On the Earth you will never see again, it is All Hallows Eve! The death of summer is again at hand! And the vail to the underworld is at its thinnest!”

I studied the captive demon, relaxing, and realized that her pink energies were the color of a festering wound, while the purple flecks were the ugly and putrescent purple of a horribly painful and deep bruise.

Those energies that sparked interestingly carried those very sickly and painful connotations.

I also noticed that the blackened gouges in her skin and holes in her wings were slowly knitting together after the shards of contained energy had ripped through her. As were her fingertips, slowly pushing out into rounded nubs. There were tendrils of her reddish-purple skin reaching across and bridging the gaps over the charred places and knitting the wounds together like sutures.

Truth be told, it looked pretty painful, but Nyx was so enraged she did not seem to notice.

I told her, “Hey Nyxie, I have another question for you.”

She growled past Human teeth quickly reshaping to vicious needles and growing sharper by the heartbeat right in front of me. Her black hair was a messy and shadowed veil before her angry eyes. Her feral-sounding growl was accompanied by her spreading her wings behind her, and her rage-trembling hands from her naked breasts and out to her sides preparing to strike and rend me limb from limb.

I ignored her furious posturing and cringed when her right wing slipped into the field and a good hand’s length burned off in that careless instant and the succubus winced in pain. Shaking my head, I ignored her pain and asked, “How’s my buddy Liam?”

That broke her brain.

Nyx jerked up straight, confused and blinked at me a few times.

Her vengeful rage slipped away, her teeth and nails shrunk back to normal, and a malevolent smile curled her lips and evil hunger showed in her eyes. She pushed her long fallen hair back from her eyes and over her horns, miming flirty human female preening.

Lilitha Nyx breathlessly panted, her enthusiasm clear, “Oh, not well! I assure you! Liam is not doing well!” She edged up to the elemental salt barrier between us like a tiger eyeing someone to eat just on the other side of the glass at the zoo. She informed me, “After that fool’s abject failure got me killed and exiled by your world’s priests, my master punished me horribly! Then a few short decades later, Liam’s soul arrived in our domain, and he was given to me to torment!” Snarling into the barrier, she threatened, venom weeping like clinging acid in her voice, “Your insolence and pouring that painful drivel onto me was the only thing in all four universes that could have drawn me away from ripping Liam’s soul to pieces infinitely, slowly and painfully for all eternity!”

I cheerfully smiled and chirped, “Good! You two deserve each other! It sounds like you two are getting along great in the pits of Hell!”

She snarled at me.

Just to see what would happen I relaxed, thinking of my love for Azura, Vespera and Elara. Even Zephyra as she cared for our children while playing the role of happy Aunt and grandmother to all. I opened my heart to those good things and let it flow, as I told Nyx to her face, “You know when I got here you sold me for a single gold coin.”

The bitch smirked at me.

Interrupting, she lashed out verbally, she ground out each syllable with disgust and rage, “Fitting! You are worth less than that! I laughed at your single coin price! I instructed my acolytes here to set all of your prices so low! I set your price so low just so that the worst kinds of monsters from this plane would purchase you all. Your mortal bodies would suffer and quickly die here! And then I could devour all your souls again immediately following your horrible painful deaths!” With violently twisted rage she oozed all her malice into naming me, “Human!”

I just smiled at her, and began again, feeling great, “Yeah, about that!”

I smiled so warmly at her that she recoiled in shocked disgust. Stepping back from the elemental salt barrier, she fumbled and fell two steps back, anticipation frantic in her eyes.

I deliberately did it again and laid it onto her, just to see what would happen, “I need to thank you in person.” I poured my good feelings into it when I told her, “I was really scared and upset at first. But you set the price so low that a clan of really cute Goblin girls could afford me.” Shaking my head and feeling every iota of love for my girls, so that I could I expressed it all, “My girls, and our babies, are the loves of my life! You gave me the single greatest gift anyone could have ever!”

Lilitha Nyx buckled, crumbled, and convulsed under my open and honest flow of positive emotions directed at her. She began to quail and shrieked piteously.

That was pretty funny!

Just those thoughts seemed to rip away her reserves of energy and willpower to spew her hatred.

I let her have it, pouring the last of those wonderful feelings out, and told Nyx, “Lilitha Nyx, I’m really grateful for everything you have done to help my life turn out so wonderfully! Thank you, genuinely from the bottom of my heart, Lilitha Nyx!”

Her shriek redoubled, as she buckled all the way to one knee and her left fist Her wings fell broken and beaten down like a dead bat’s might look. The pure evil succubus cradled her guts with her right arm.

Suddenly, Nyx retched and dry heaved!

I did not even know demons could do that!

Her gagging abdominal convulsions left her mouth drooling until finally, she dry heaved onto Isidore’s study floor retching out yellowish-green bile so it splat wetly onto the floor.

That was when I realized that I was probably going to be the one who had to clean that up.

Sha-Ra finally spoke from behind Isidore, making their presence known too, “Why is Hummie flirting with the Succubus demon?”

Still on her knees, Lilitha Nyx’s head snapped back, realizing for the first time since her enraged and painful arrival, that there were two other people in the room. She instantly recognized Isidore and shouted, “You!”

Amused to no end, it showed plainly on his face, Isidore ignored Nyx, and answered Sha-Ra, “I don’t know, honestly. Give him a few more moments. He’s doing pretty well so far.” He finally looked away from Nyx and spoke directly to Sha-Ra, “Besides, it’s entertaining for now. Let’s see where this goes, shall we?”

Nyx roared at the pair, leaping to her feet before them, but careful to avoid the barrier, “I should have known you were behind this, you sadistic, manipulative, old Wizard!”

Isidore just shook his head, unable to let his ongoing amusement fade, and just pointed at me. He stated, “It was all him, my dear Nyx.”

Having pushed my fun to the limits, I started drawing up short. I looked at Isidore and asked, “What should we do now?”

Master-Wizard Isidore just shrugged, and asked, “You tell me, apprentice.”

Nyx circled back around her tiny cage to face me, lips drawn tight in an angry line. Her yellowish-green eyes were no longer exotically beautiful to me, they were just the color of the retched-up bile she spewed on the floor only inches from my feet.

Transmuting her charm into revulsion and pitiable disgust by associating her eyes, no longer with exotic beauty, but vomit, I thought for a moment. I carefully checked the distance to the salt barrier and then seeing l had enough space, reached over to carefully pull out one of the visitor chairs from Isidore’s desk and turned it to face Nyx before taking a seat facing her.

Mind absent in thought, I questioned distantly, “Master Isidore, Nyx is trapped in this circle so long as no one disturbs it right?”

The Master Wizard agreed, “That is correct.”

I asked, “That means that if we leave her in here, she will be trapped in this purgatory until the tower falls because of lack of maintenance after we have all died of old age?”

Isidore agreed, “Yes, in principle, that is correct.”

It started oozing into Nyx’s eyes as she started seeing where I was going with this. Her horror started creeping around the edges of her eyes and softening her scowl.

Next, I asked, “She has to eat, on this plane of existence I mean. She has to eat, consuming sexual mana to remain or she will starve to death. She will just begin withering away over many years, becoming painfully weaker and weaker. Correct?”

A chuckle entered Isidore’s voice that horrified Nyx, when he agreed, “Correct.” And then the Wizard added informationally, “In that weakened state she will be vulnerable to everything else in her Hell dimension. She will be abused and ripped at by even the lowest orders of Hell creatures, tearing away her power, even while she attempts to reconstitute her form. It would probably take her many more centuries of painful work to regrow her body after the centuries it took starving to death on our mortal plane.”

Nyx slumped, then deflated more until she finally thumped her naked bottom to the floor next to her vomit spew. Her wings were bent what looked painfully, while her tail failed to swish at all. Her tail only writhed like a sick snake worming in slow-motion pain.

It seemed the damage done by my thinking more positive emotions at her, then the prospect of starvation, all followed by torture in hell broke her morale too. That was interesting to know.

Unless she was faking again like she was faking when she seduced me at Liam’s All Hallows party more than a century ago.

Not knowing where to go from here, and eyeing Nyx, I just muttered a casual, “Hum,” between us.

Isidore asked, with a suspicious-looking Sha-Ra behind him, gazing over his shoulder, “You’re stuck, Alex? You don’t know where to go from here?”

Biting my teeth together and pinching my lips into a line, I gazed down from my seat at my defeated opponent.

I shook my head not knowing where to go from here at all. Right then, I had not the first clue!

Isidore finally prompted, “Alex, go to my shelf again, staying clear of the salt circle.” Isidore began navigating around the circumference too and waved Sha-Ra after him.

She kept the ax ready and pointed at the demon.

Isidore found his comfortable chair behind his desk, and pointed Sha-Ra into the other, gesturing that she take it. Sha-Ra pulled the chair out and around the edge of the table so she could sit at the table’s side and stare at Nyx in line with Isidore’s eyes on the trapped demon. The She-Orc warrior woman kept the foot of the ax planted firmly on the floor by her side like a staff or cane.

Isidore pointed me to the side of the shelves, and instructed, “Top shelf, cloth over gold bars, pick one gold bar please.”

I quickly found it and retrieved the weighty hunk of precious highly conductive and non-reactive metal.

He gestured, ordering me back to my chair.

When I arrived I demanded of Nyx, asking directly into her slumped form, “Lilitha, what did it feel like for you when I offered that blessing and thanks to you?”

She sighed and slumped more, trapped and defeated, humiliated and exhausted, but she managed to threaten, “Imagine the day I’m free of you, Human. On that day I will flay your skin from your body, strip by strip. Then when your flesh is exposed and tingling with the unbearable pain of severed nerves from every inch of your body, I will dunk you in a vat of lime juice and salt. Your wounds will send your body alight with a new level and definition of pain!” She looked up scowling, her bottomless malice returning in full force, “On that day, when I have my vengeance, you will feel the pain that I experienced thanks to your ignorance and arrogance!”

I tumbled the heavy gold bar over and over again in my lap, careful not to drop it and embarrass myself in front of the demon.

I just nodded and found myself offering apologies, “I’m sorry about that, Lilitha. I did not know.”

She exhaled hard, shaking her head, cascades of void black hair sheeting down limp and lifeless. Her eyes down and drained again, instead of her earlier rage-filled retort, Lilitha ground out, “Good things, things of the light and love, scald Demon-kind, stupid Human! I am a creature of the dark. When you slam the light into me, it is going to hurt! It hurts unimaginably!”

Curious, I asked, “But when mortals love and lust after you, that does not harm you, doesn’t that feed you?”

Shrugging listlessly, Nyx admitted the ring of truth behind her exhausted words, “No. Not exactly. I can turn love into an unhealthy obsession over me that I can exploit as a negative emotion. That was how I turned Liam so easily. He was already down the dark path of personal power. All I had to do was stimulate and twist his love into something deliciously unhealthy, and he was mine.

“Lust for me is simply greed and avarice on the part of one mortal for another mortal, or me. The connection of lust, through love or avarice, towards me is just a signal.” She shrugged again, and admitted, “While I gain minimal energy from it, I see lust towards me, like mortals might see a red ripe apple and know it is ready to eat.

“I feed on the mana, the life force, you give me with your seed.”

I asked gently, slightly changing directions, “So when your dark master tournaments you, because he is ripping you with dark powers that helps or heals you?”

She eyed me, patronizingly, huffed and scowled, and then admitted, “I am demonkind. My existence is based on pain. Some kinds of pain are just more painful and unpleasant than others.”

Isidore and Sha-Ra remained silent as I asked my next interrogatory, “Lilitha, how does your command of lust work?”

She looked up, eyeing me, but did not respond. Nyx remained defiantly silent.

I changed tack a little bit, allowed my irritation to eke out, and I reminded her, “You are trapped in there for a very long time. I have supreme power over you and your fate right now. You will answer. How you answer me will probably determine how you are treated in the near future, for better or worse.