Inc Inc 3 -CH13- (Patreon)

Abrah was led into what Sam would consider a throne room.

It was over decorated, carved, and loaded with furniture that would clearly have taken a great deal of materials to make.

Given the situation in Hell was of extreme scarcity, this was a vast amount of wealth on display.

None of it mattered at all to Sam, of course. The trappings of wealth had long since lost their luster to him.

Trailing along quietly behind the group, Sam couldn’t help but smile as the group of people got Abrah to sit down on the throne. Once more they all clustered around her and continued to offer their congratulations to her.

Sam wandered off to the side of the room and took a seat in one of the chairs there. He didn’t need to be directly involved in this. Right now he really just needed to focus on shaving what he could off of the imprisonment spell.

He had the resources, ability, and the luxury of free time that he couldn’t do much else with. This was a perfect opportunity to work on it.

Making himself comfortable Sam adjusted his clothes and inspected the room one more time. The last thing he wanted to do was to delve into something as dangerous as he was without assuring himself of the ability to do so.

Abrah was sitting on the throne, listening to all the newly-minted sycophants that were bleating at her. She looked over to him once and gave him a wry smirk before turning back to the gathering.

Well. Seems like she knew it would be like this. That certainly helps ease my concerns.

We’ll just not go as deeply into this carving session. Keep some awareness above water, so to speak.

Turning his awareness toward the spell that hung on him, Sam grabbed hold of his Essence. Molding it into a thin frame, he began to scrape at Jena’s spell.

Mindlessly, with a maddeningly slow pace, Sam worked. Picking and chipping at the spell with his Essence. Almost like one might work at peeling off the remains of a sticker from a cup with a fingernail.

As he worked though, something he hadn’t expected was coming to light for Sam. That the longer he clawed at the spell, the more it resisted his efforts.

In an almost active way.

Like it has a mind of it’s own.

Sam paused in his work to consider what was happening. He’d dismissed it for quite a while as he was fairly certain he was over-thinking it. But now, he was positive of it. That there was really no other explanation.

Laying his magic-worked Essence frame to the spell he slid it along. Finding an edge he could pry up, he wiggled the Essence into it.

Instead of working to pop it free, which is what he’d done every time up to this point, he waited. He wanted to see what would happen if he did nothing.

In a clear and obvious response to his finding a point to work at, it was suddenly reinforced. Fresh Essence was being applied from an external source to the spell.

It wasn’t increasing the size of the spell at all, but it was certainly trying to keep Sam from breaking more of it away.

Did… Jena… leave behind a pin in it? Can she track me with this spell?

I imagine the moment I began working at it, she not only knew I was alive, but unwinding the work she’d done.

Though… doesn’t that mean… that I could trace it back to her?

In fact-in fact if I took this spell as a whole, couldn’t I reverse it? There’s a lot of power here. Rather than work to eliminate it, I could use it against her, couldn’t I?

I can use her active reinforcement as a way to follow it back to her. Back to her and then… attack her? Locate her?

What all can I do?

Hm.

Easing up from his work, Sam set it aside. It was something to consider. If he could get it to work in the way he wished, he might be able to not just free himself from the spell, but attack Jena.

Blinking several times, Sam looked up from his lap to the throne.

Off to one side was a large pile of bodies. Many of them looking to have been broken at multiple places. In fact, some of the people in that mound were still alive, moaning and wriggling amongst the bodies.

“That’s certainly unexpected,” Sam murmured, looking from the pile to the room itself. It was otherwise unchanged except for a few pools of blood here and there.

Turning to gaze at the throne, Sam found Abrah sitting in it with a sword across her knees. She was looking back at him.

“Family, friends, and loyal retainers to Timithy,” Abrah declared. “In fighting for his title, he doomed not just himself. I can’t leave such a weapon unbroken.

“Otherwise, others will pick it up to use it against me. To fight me with the remains of a claim from another.

“After all, it’s how I myself had a valid right to the city. A remainder from a previous claimant that wasn’t completely wiped out. I’ll not let the same happen to me.”

“That certainly seems fair, though, there are those still alive,” Sam said in a dull tone. He pointed toward the mound in question. “That’s just distasteful. Rude, even, if you give it a thought at all. Be a Demon-Knight, not a Demon-Thug. They might need to die, but we can do it efficiently.”

Abrah slowly looked away from Sam, apparently unable to meet his gaze. She likely wasn’t quite sure with how his views would fit into the world of Hell, but she didn’t wish to nay say him.

Sam was of the belief that if people needed to be slain, then they would be slain. In this case, there was no reason at all to torture them in their final hours.

There was no point in it other than for the sake of cruelty.

“Yes, my lord. My apologies,” Abrah said, getting up from her throne. “That’s unbecoming of me as your Demon-Knight. You’re absolutely correct.”

Moving over to the bodies she began to systematically pull each one free, slit it’s throat, then set it aside.

Even the unmoving bodies were given the same treatment. Just to insure there was no one lingering on the vestiges of life.

“Good,” Sam said, getting up out of his chair. He slowly began to walk over in her direction, putting his hands behind his back as he did so. “Did I miss anything?”

“No. Just taking over,” Abrah said with a grunt as she pulled a body out of the mess. Dropping it to the ground she pulled the dagger over and then slit their throat. There was no response at all from the corpse.

Picking it up, she tossed it onto the new pile, set the dagger down, and grabbed another. She was quite determined to resolve the issue.

“Anything you need help with?” Sam asked, watching her work critically. If he was going to attach his name to her, he needed her to be exactly what he wanted.

He wasn’t going to be able to escape his older moniker of Lord Lust of the third tower. Which meant he had to update it.

Bring it around to where he wanted that to be.

Which would be efficient, brutal if it had to be, though clean and clinical otherwise. If people had to die, they would die.

Just in a very logical and precise manner that minimized resources and suffering.

“Yes, my lord. I’d like to use your brand upon others. Do I have your permission to do so?” Abrah asked, pausing in her work to look at him. “I would like to insure their loyalty to me.”

“Oh. Yes. That’s fine. So long as they’re willing to branded, you may brand them with the one I put upon you. Though I’ll give you no control,” Sam warned. “You’ll just be binding them to me, not you.”

“That’s fine. In binding to you, they’ll be unable to betray me,” Abrah reasoned. “As harming me, who works only for you, is betraying you.”

Nodding her head once, she looked like that satisfied her.

“Additionally, I’ll need you to feed me more Essence tonight,” proclaimed Abrah. “In the mortal night hours, that is.

“Your Essence is far more powerful than I expected. It’s given me a lot more power to work with. Few could stand up to me before based on my own Essence generation through combat.

“Yours is on another level entirely, my lord lust. I must have more of it.”

“Of course. My plan was to bed you all night long until your hips give out, Abrah, my sweet Demon-Knight,” Sam said, reaching out to lay a hand on the small of her back as she worked.

It made the Demon-Knight shudder, his skin going straight into goosebumps that he could see.

“I plan on treasuring you, just as you asked,” Sam promised in a murmur. One that he put some desire into for her ears alone. “You were so delicious, my darling Abrah. My would be Succubus-Knight.”

Abrah let out a soft squeak, her hands paused in mid corpse-grab. She began to breathe hard, her shoulders slowly gaining a quiver to them.

“Re-release me, my lord lust, or have me on the ground right now. I can’t remain in this limbo you’ve put me in,” begged Abrah. “I have so much work to do to put your city to rights.”

Laughing, Sam gave her a gentle pat and slowly eased up on the pressure he was putting on her.

“That’s fine. When you finish with this work, let’s go to the vault,” said Sam. “I want to utilize some of the Essence there to see if I can’t jump start my own little war with Jenaphila.

“I’ve found a sudden weakness in her defenses and I want to see if I can’t exploit it. We shall see, however, if I can make it work.”

“Yes, my lord lust. I’m your Demon-Knight, and at your service,” swore Abrah. “I’ve already begun recruiting other Demon-Knight’s to serve me, to serve you.”

“Excellent work,” Sam said, then let his hand fall away from Abrah. “Did I mention your horns are looking lovely today? Did you buff them?”

“I-yes, I did. I wanted you to look at me,” admitted Abrah, pulling over a new body. She picked up the dagger and ran it over their throat. This time there was a flinch as she did so. The person wasn’t quite as dead as they’d appeared to be.

“Well, I’m looking, Abrah. I’m looking,” Sam said, putting the full weight of his gaze on her. He knew exactly what it would do to her.

He was an ancient Incubus, after all. Half of what he did to women wasn’t even in his control anymore.

Moaning, unperturbed by her surroundings at all, Abrah shoved the now very dead Demon into the new pile, and went for another.

Clearly his admonition of her “rude behavior” was driving her through the actions. Which was perfect.

***

Standing in the doorway to the vault Sam finally believed he’d done the right thing. Taking over the city itself was exactly what he needed to do.

There was far more Essence here than he’d ever need to break the spell that held him. More than he’d need to do it six times over, in fact.

He wouldn’t even beggar the city by taking what he needed. Timithy had been very frugal with his spending.

“Its… considering the woes of the city, this is far more than I expected to see,” complained Abrah with a shake of her head. “He was just hoarding it all.”

The massive ephemeral ball of Essence rotated slowly in the vault. Hovering in the air and spitting out small gouts of power that quickly was reabsorbed.

Apparently the vault had been designed specifically in mind to hold a great deal of Essence.

“I’ll repeat back to you, your own often stated reminder to me, Abrah. This is Hell. Looking out for others has no place here, regardless of the age,” Sam said in an almost bored tone. “I can’t deny that we might go against the grain with our plans though.

“We’ll certainly change things a bit for the city. Likely give the citizens a better life then they had for the taxes they give us, but it’ll still be Hell.

“You cannot change a Devil or Demon that doesn’t wish to change. They’ll just listen to their natures and let those dictate their life. I was no different before becoming what I am.”

“Yes, Lord Lust. I understand,” Abrah said sincerely. He could tell she was trying to fine tune her thinking as quickly as she could. She was learning quite quickly as well.

“Sam, or Sammy, when we’re alone, remember?” Sam reminded her. Holding his hand out, he put a thread of his Essence into the stored Essence.

“Should I remain? I’m not sure what you’re going to do, but I feel as if you should always have a retainer, Lo-Sam.”

“You may remain. As a Demon-Knight, you might have some proficiency to use and learn Essence-Sorcery. Since you haven’t learned it previously,” Sam said after a thought about it. “Doubly so since you now wear my brand. I imagine you could utilize it directly through that.”

“I can indeed. I’ve already been using it to empower myself,” agreed Abrah. “I’m at least three times as strong as I was previously just utilizing the brand alone.”

Sam only nodded his head to that. It made sense.

Demon-Knights were quite versatile as lieutenants and assistants.

I should have gotten a Demon-Knight instead of Jena.

Feeling a grimace on his face, Sam began to reach out toward the spell around him. Shaping an Essence construct to start prying at it once again.

Almost immediately he felt the active pressure from outside. Attempting to reinforce the spell from every angle and side. To prevent Sam from unraveling it.

Smirking, Sam had been thinking about this exact moment. Because it hadn’t made complete sense to him.

He was cut off from his planes, but this Essence was coming from elsewhere. Which meant it had to be coming in from a plane or a tear in Hell’s planar fabric.

In either case, Sam could use that to his advantage. Because if there was an opening, that meant he could follow the Essence back and find it.

Even as he mimed that he was about to start working on the spell that hung on him, Sam also built a construct out of Essence separately. It was a snare of sorts that would pull on the owner of the magic it latched to.

Given that Sam knew exactly which brand Jenaphila was wearing, he could also fine-tune his spell. He had all the tools and then some to rip open a portal back to where-ever Jenaphila was.

Sam was betting that was the prime material plane.

Slowly, he closed his snare in around the extra-planar Essence he’d detected. Jena’s Essence coming from her actively trying to work against him.

Following it backward Sam was trying to see where it went before he fully committed to his entrapment. He’d only have one shot at it so he wanted to learn what he could.

A sudden loop in the Essence surprised him when it coiled back to the spell around him. It was exiting the spell directly, going out past his Essence construct, then back to the spell.

The… spell is the portal? How curious. That means I should try to get my snare in place where it exits. Because I won’t have much time after she feels it lock in.

She’ll pull it through, then I’ll yank open the portal once my Essence is on the other side.

Then I can immediately open another portal to somewhere else and close the original.

Before Sam could reach the end point Jenaphila must have noticed what was going on. Maybe she sensed the snare, perhaps she got spooked by the fact that he hadn’t acted, but her Essence was rapidly withdrawing.

Snapping the Essence snare in place Sam clenched onto it with all the force he could muster. Pulling with his Essence, the brand he knew she wore, and using the vault’s Essence as a stabilizer so he could respond to whatever she did.

Which was nothing.

Sam had locked his snare in place so tightly that it’d done the opposite of what he wanted. Rather than his Essence being drawn through to the other side, it’d completely halted Jenaphila’s line.

Halted it cold but had inadvertently yanked on it.

It was as if a piece of twine was held between two points and Sam had just dropped a weight right in the middle.

One side was held in place by the vault, the other wasn’t as securely tied down. Pulling the twine down towards the middle.

Before Sam could think of pushing in through the small tear in the planar Essence of the world, he missed his chance.

The tear blew outward in a massive detonation. Planar space and time was fractured into a thousand bits and pieces. Multiple holes began opening up straight into the void even as more of Jena’s Essence splattered into the Hell plane.

Faster and faster it came as if there was some type of vacuum like force being applied to it now. More of the life-Essence that had the taste of death and fear piled ever higher.

Then Jena popped through the tear itself and landed at Sam’s feet with a pop. Landing flat on her rear, her feet pressing up to his shins.

I… what?