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Infernal Affairs

• Chapter 8 of the Legends of the DragonRider

The world lurched sickeningly. There was a sensation of rising very rapidly, pushing all her blood down towards her legs, making her vision blacken. The feeling of pressure on her skin shifted, as if she was rising from a pool she'd forgotten she was even in. Then she stumbled forwards, numb feet clumsily skidding on black basalt tiles. While the droning hum in her ears cleared she heard gasps, scrambling feet, and panicked chanting around her. The air seemed thin and unsatisfying but, next to her, she could hear Tiffany breathe eagerly and easily. It seemed she - or at least her demon-essence-infused body - had gotten a little too used to the dense, sulfur-laden atmosphere of the nether planes.

As her vision cleared, she looked around and suppressed a grin. She was standing in front of a dark altar, within a summoning circle at the bottom of an amphitheater-style ritual room and, around her, were dark-robed figures in various stages of panic. The cultists of the Bloody Dawn worshiped demons, sure - but the sudden, unannounced and unanticipated arrival of one was clearly not cause for celebration. The warding gestures and dramatic chants currently being directed at her MIGHT actually have served to contain her, too, if she'd actually BEEN a demon. As it were, she felt a slight tingling in her horns, and that was about it.

Though, yeah, between the horns, the claws, her inhuman eyes, and having just stepped out of an infernal portal, she really couldn't blame them for assuming she was a demon. Still, she'd best set the record straight before they reached the 'banish the intruder by any means necessary' stage of their panic. Letting go of Tiffany - who immediately sank to her knees at Anitra's feet - she stepped forwards, bringing her sandal-clad foot down hard as she raised her voice to a shout. "Calm yourselves, brethren! I am no demon, for all that I have taken on the aspects of one. I am Anitra, Inducted Member of the Inner Circle. My name is found upon the Scrolls, printed by the hand of the Lucifex himself!"

The panic did not immediately stop - presumably, cultists who were inclined to immediately believe anything that stepped out of a Hell portal and declared "I'm not actually a demon, I'm a FRIEND, no really!" didn't live very long. However, it DID decrease, and several eyes turned towards a guy in a slightly more elaborate robe - complete with a rather roughly-made Bloodstone Necklace, which glowed faintly with infernal power - who was halfway up the stairs to the exit, but now froze and turned to look at her. She could tell immediately that he was a member of the Inner Circle himself - not just from his gear, but also from a kind of innate instinct. And clearly, the same was true for him.

Halting his egress, he turned to walk back down the staircase as he declared, seemingly trying to make it sound dramatic enough that his minions would forget how quick he'd been to run "She speaks the truth! Our Sister has returned, indeed, from the very pits of Hell itself!"

The chanting petered off, and the cultists just stared at her for a bit. She lifted an eyebrow at them, taking on a challenging pose as their leader hurriedly approached her. He seemed rather uncertain in his authority... almost certainly a recent inductee. Well, the Lucifex would've been busy rooting out anyone who harbored lingering loyalty for the late, unlamented Sharanama, which had likely left a fair number of dead men's shoes waiting to be filled - so that made sense.

Anitra was confirmed in her suspicions when he nervously half-bowed before her, suggesting that he, at least, considered the she-demon before him to have seniority. "Let me be the first to welcome you back to this plane of existence, Sister. I apologize for the rude reception - we had... not been informed of your mission." He peered at her curiously and she returned the gesture with a grin that no doubt seemed extra-menacing right now - what with all the sharp fangs. "Well, if the Lucifex did not see fit to share the details of my secret mission with you, I do not intend to subvert him."

The cultist quickly withdrew his curiosity, ducking his head. In an environment like that, 'Knowing too much' was probably bad for one's health and liable to land you on the wrong side of a sacrificial altar - specifically, the topside. She was about to say something else when she felt Tiffany, who was still kneeling by her side, sag against her legs, and remembered something more important. Reaching down, Anitra removed the slave-collar - no longer functional now that it couldn't tap into the raw energy pervading the nether planes - from around the girl's neck, and gave some of the nearby cultist grunts a sharp look. "You there. This girl is vital to my mission, and also both starved and dehydrated. Take her to the kitchen at once and see that she is watered and fed, then provide her with a quiet room to rest. And make no mistake: She is not to be harmed, if you value your lives!"

The cultists, used to taking orders from anyone who snapped at them with a suitably authoritarian tone of voice - and probably happy for an excuse to leave the room before they accidentally overheard something they shouldn't - immediately leaped into action and carried the exhausted, half-naked girl away. Hopefully, she wouldn't have too much trouble readjusting to ordinary fodder after months living off infernal energy channeled through her collar.

As she then redirected her attention back to the Inner Circle cultist before her, she found that he had taken advantage of the brief respite to gather his thoughts and figure out the course of action that involved the greatest possible amount of ass-covering. "I am sure the Lucifex is eager to hear your report, Sister Anitra - allow me to escort you directly to his chambers!"

She had already nodded - after all, she DID need to talk to the old guy - when a booming, magically-enhanced voice preempted her. "That will not be necessary. I am already aware of her return." Looking up, she found the Lucifex himself standing at the top of the stairs, hellfire glowing in his eyes, flanked by a rather... unexpected pair, to say the least. Fortunately, the dramatic arrival of the Lucifex and his escort had drawn every eye in the room, preventing anyone - except for, of course, the three new arrivals - from noticing her wide-eyed gaping.

On the Lucifex's left side stood a woman who could be thought of as the dictionary definition of 'Dark Mistress'. A coldly beautiful Drow Elf, wearing a skimpy robe of light-devouring black that amply revealed the ensemble of dark, spike-studded leather beneath. A coiled whip hung at one side of her hip, while a black-and-purple rod tipped with a tiny skull rode on the other side. And, of course, the inevitable symbol of the spider-goddess Lolth hung around her neck. The overall image was equal parts evil priestess, evil sorceress, and sadistic torturer. It was also, clearly, Direza.

This fact was one of the main reasons she could even guess the identity of the creature who stood on the Lucifex's right side. It was a tall, muscular, equine-like individual, so it HAD to be Melora - but it sure didn't look much like her! Instead of her usual, gentle-brown coat, this being was covered in the darkest black and sported a mane and tail of dancing flame. The eyes burned like lumps of coal as well, and little clouds of steam emerged from the nostrils with every breath. Her usual equipment - dragonforged plate armor and a heavy, yet practical, glaive, had also been exchanged for something more barbaric and intimidating. The polearm she wielded couldn't really be called by any name - its head was a mess of spikes, blades and blood-encrusted hooks. The only armor on the upper body was a pair of leather straps crisscrossing the torso, hung with grisly trophies such as shrunken heads and severed, mummified hands - not that those could entirely distract from such an impressive pair of tits, especially what with the spiky rings of black iron that encircled each nipple like a dark star, drawing the eye. The lower body, meanwhile, was covered only by a simple loincloth which entirely failed to conceal the large bulge underneath. A hermaphroditic Nightmare - or just Melora wearing the Ring of Priap and covered in an illusion of Blake's devising.

After taking in the scary, yet strangely erotic sight, she quickly got herself under control and got into character. Stepping forwards boldly, she delivered a semi-respectful half-bow up at the Lucifex and then silently started up the stairs towards him. He returned the bow with a nod and a broad, nasty smile. "You return ahead of schedule, my faithful servant. I am sure you carry much vital information. Shall we retreat to the privacy of my throne room for a debriefing?" Doing her best to ignore the 'faithful servant' bit, she nodded, trying not to look too obviously at Direza and Melora's disguised forms. "Certainly, your Unholiness. But perhaps you could send for some food and drink? Feeding on nothing but demonic essence for weeks can leave you a bit parched - you know how it is..." The Lucifex, not missing a beat, nodded sagely. "Of course, of course... the unfortunate needs of the flesh, and all that." A wordless glance sent several more cultists scrambling in the direction of the kitchens, while Anitra licked her suddenly parched lips. She'd left her own slave collar back in the nether planes, and was currently riding the tail-end of the Quickening she'd received from her demonic allies just prior to seizing Agares' fortress. It wouldn't last much longer and once it ran out she'd be just as weak and close to death as Tiffany had been.

She could have easily found her way through the labyrinthine hallways of the Bloody Dawn Cult's High Temple, even if she hadn't been following the Lucifex - more proof that whatever subtle magic the cult's scrolls exercised on those whose names were written therein, marking them as member of the Inner Circle, remained effective in her case.

The throne room was as grandiose and ominous as she remembered it, although the great dome above had been rebuilt after Blake had smashed through it during her previous visit. A faint, magical glow could be seen around the repaired area, however - enchantments that she deduced to be part of some sort of portal arrangement, which would allow the dome to somehow open and allow the passage of creatures too large to get through the door. This deduction was not based on some detailed perception of the magic involved - only a true, and talented, dragon could dissect spells on sight like that - but rather on the fact that Blake was sitting coiled around the throne itself, having somehow arrived there without making a fresh hole in the dome.

As soon as the imposing doors closed behind her, she rushed to Blake's side, throwing her arms around his head. An ever-so-careful claw encircled her back, in the closest something the size of a dragon could come to a hug. Perhaps it would've been better to restrain herself - after all, during her previous visit, she'd sold the Lucifex on the classic "I'm some kind of magical badass who can enslave a black dragon, normally thought to be impossible, and hence must be immeasurably powerful" line. But she just couldn't - she had not been separated from his side for so long since her month-long captivity at the hands of the Centaurs, and the moment she saw him, the impact hit home - like a hook in her heart, dragging her forwards.

The Lucifex, however, just chuckled behind her. "A close partnership indeed - so touching!" Blake snorted, looking past her to the dreadful old man. "So I told you, yes. Are you surprised I spoke the truth?" His voice rumbled ominously, and she found herself smiling broadly at the familiar timbre. Apparently, Blake had revealed at least SOME of their secrets already - presumably in an effort to secure the Lucifex's assistance in tracking her down and retrieving her. But only some, from the looks of it - she could tell as much from the fact that Direza was simply standing nearby looking grave, as opposed to throwing herself weeping into Anitra's arms. It seemed that spending centuries as the political and spiritual leader of a race of notorious backstabbers had provided her with an impressive ability to hide her feelings - one that Anitra could not yet hope to duplicate. Something to keep in mind for later, perhaps...

The sound of a spear being rapped against the throne room door interrupted her thoughts and she quickly composed herself - stepping away from Blake and assuming a professional mien. A gesture from the Lucifex caused the intimidating double doors to spring open, and a handful of lower ranking cultists filed in, goggling at the selection of powerful people and creatures they'd just wandered into the presence of. They quickly set up a fold-out table and then weighted it down with several dishes fresh from the compound's capacious kitchens, along with several carafes of water and wine. Demon worshipers or not, one couldn't fault their ability to set up a quick power-lunch!

As soon as they had filed back out again, Anitra descended on the table with ravenous hunger. Seeing Blake had just about managed to make her forget her long-unsatisfied appetite - but the scent of freshly roasted meat, steamed vegetables and thick, hard-crusted bread very thoroughly reminded her. While she gorged herself, the last vestiges of her Quickening faded and, with it, her demonic features - the horns, fangs, claws and reddish-tinted skin. Recognizing that she wouldn't be in any condition to speak for a while, Blake briefed her during the interval - choosing his words carefully to avoid giving away too much to the Lucifex, who hovered attentively nearby with an amused smirk on his face.

After her dramatic disappearance in the midst of the Dragon Utopia's caravansary, things had gotten very chaotic, very quickly. The entire caravan that her suicidal assailant had arrived with had swiftly been surrounded and interrogated by pissed-off dragons, but a careful questioning under the effects of truth-telling magic soon made it clear that nobody else in the caravan had had any idea who they'd been traveling with. The man had signed on as a caravan guard, bringing with him some fine references - which were swiftly proven to be forged, once they'd been handed over to the ever helpful sages living in the Utopia - and had acted fairly normal during the entire trip. He'd fought bravely when they'd been beset by monsters shortly before reaching the dragons' lands, played dice and swapped stories with other guards, and just generally not stood out in any notable way. A sleeper agent, essentially, ready to leap into action when he saw his mark and no sooner. Legion had picked him well.

Regardless, demonic involvement had been abundantly clear, so Blake had turned to the handful of resident wizards, mages and alchemists who had some knowledge of Demonology - purely for self-defense, as they all hastened to assure him when he asked about that particularly dangerous subject. Most of them could only confirm that yes, she had most likely been pulled into the nether planes, rather than killed outright - and through a couple attempted to locate and retrieve her using modified demon-summoning rituals, nothing came of it. Anitra now knew that this had to be due to the barrier surrounding the Utopia interfering with such inter-dimensional effects but, to Blake, it had just been a frustrating string of failures.

And so, he'd decided to look further afield, seeking out the greatest authority on Demonlogy that he knew of - the Lucifex of the Church of the Bloody Dawn. Taking with him his chief retainers - that would be Direza and Melora, in their new 'Mad, bad and dangerous to know' disguises - he had returned to the Temple. After said disguises had gained his envoys access with remarkable ease Blake was granted an audience - courtesy of the modifications made to the temple's great dome after his previous visit. The Lucifex agreed to help, citing debts owed, a chance to spoke the wheel of Legion (who had, after all, backed Sharanaman over himself in the cult's internal power-struggles), and some vague references to future favors.

The cult's ritualists had been making slow but steady progress towards locating her - at least according to the Lucifex - when she surprised the heck out of them all by stepping out of a spontaneously-forming portal all of a sudden. "I suppose that means you don't owe me any favors after all..." the Lucifex remarked sadly, shrugging his shoulders. "But I do believe that the best-faith efforts_I have expended in my attempt to aid you at least erase any lingering debts I might owe _you."

By then, Anitra had filled enough of the gaping hole in her gut - and whetted her parched lips enough - that she was able to answer. "I don't know about that, 'old friend'... doing your best but still accomplishing nothing? That and a copper will get you a mug of beer. And while I suppose I DO owe you thanks for this meal, I'm less sure if even such a grand feast is on entirely the same level as helping you to secure full control over the Bloody Dawn."

The Lucifex lifted an eyebrow sardonically, grin widening despite her harsh words. "Ahhh... whatever happened down there, you still need my help with something - and now you're trying to improve your bargaining-position. Well, why don't you tell me what you need, and THEN we'll discuss favors and debts owed, hmm? Direct knowledge of the nether planes, by itself, could be considered quite valuable..."

With a sigh and a deep breath, she nodded and began to give a somewhat abbreviated and censored account of her adventures in Hell, pausing occasionally to grab another bite of food or drink of water. She was particularly careful to avoid mentioning exactly who the father of her unborn child was, or why Legion would have a vested interest in putting a demonspawn in HER particular womb. As far as she knew, the old man still didn't know that she was a DragonRider, and however broad his smile, she wasn't about to make the mistake of trusting him - or providing him with any more information about her nature and powers than she had to.

The Lucifex knotted his brow and started ambling back and forth, head bowed as he pondered the problem put before him. Which, conveniently, prevented him from noticing Blake's struggles to stop his suddenly-flaring anger and fear from showing. "An unborn child corrupted by infernal energies, not through the usual methods, but through the mother imbibing infernal energies and thus circulating them to the fetus... fascinating! I had never thought of such an option. That certainly might provide a far better survival-ratio for both mother and child than a traditional hellspawn..." he paused and looked up, suddenly noticing the rather angry glares being directed at him from several corners, then spread his hands with a disarming smile. "Ah, yes, in this case, we want to PREVENT it... my apologies, I'm an old man, and it can be... challenging to turn ingrained thinking around. Hm. So, basically, we need to siphon off the residual infernal energy as soon as possible, in order to minimize the effects it might have on the child."

Nodding a few times, he went back to his pacing, mumbling to himself as the tension in the chamber gradually rose. Anitra found her appetite suddenly fading - whether due to her stomach now being thoroughly full, or because of the lump in her throat.

Finally, the Lucifex stopped and looked up, clapping his hands sharply. "Right! I've got it. There is a particularly obscure type of demon, known to be an undisputed master of manipulating and channeling infernal energy. Such a being should be able to do what you need, assuming we can manage to summon and bind it - which shall be no mean feat, I'd warn you!" He wagged a finger, suddenly seeming more like an aged and rather strict schoolteacher than the leader of the world's most notorious cult of demon-worshipers.

The Lucifex walked to a long obsidian table at the side of the room, where several large tomes were chained down and pentagrams glowed sootily on covers that were probably made from something unsavory. A touch from his fingers caused the chains over one of them to snap open, and he quickly leafed through the thick volume until he found what he was looking for, nodding a few times and then finally shrugging. "Yes... just as I recalled. A potent beast indeed, but it has rarely been summoned successfully. The required ritual is orgiastic in nature, which isn't normally a problem - but the required concentration of pleasure, lust and desire is staggeringly high. Two of my predecessors have left records of successfully summoning it - the first case involved over a hundred young, energetic devotees rutting themselves to death under the influence of certain herbs and drugs, while the second was a bit more sensible. Over 500 acolytes were active in several shifts, with those who had grown too exhausted to continue being pulled out and replaced with fresh faces in a steady rotation. A handful still died."

Anitra and her friends all blinked in unison. Between them, they had some truly extensive and diverse sexual experiences on the book - but a carefully coordinated, 500-plus strong orgy? It was hard to even imagine what the ritual chamber must have looked like - let alone SMELLED like - by the end of it! Still, with her newfound firsthand knowledge of demonology, she could easily understand how - and why - it worked. Emotions and sensations were food to demons, and they probably had their share of picky eaters. With a sufficiently extravagant smorgasbord of a particular demon's favorite flavor laid out, even the most aloof and reclusive of them could probably be lured through a summoning portal.

Meanwhile, the Lucifex had continued to explain the difficulties inherent in setting up the ritual, as if contemplating the arrangement of massive orgies were an everyday part of his duties - which it very well might be. "Putting together the necessary numbers isn't IMPOSSIBLE but, at this time, it would be difficult and time-consuming. A group of so-called 'heroes' recently assaulted us, as they tend to, and while this particular lot eventually wound up slaughtered by our valiant guardians, they left many a dead acolyte in their wake before they were stopped. So we don't have a lot of manpower available on-site - I'd have to call in a large number of devotees from our outlying chapters, which is always risky."

Anitra quickly held up her hand. "If I might make a suggestion... the second of your predecessors was wise to improve upon the original ritual, preventing unnecessary loss of life. Why shouldn't YOU improve on it even further? With my help - OUR help..." she glanced over at Blake, who grinned back "...I believe that we could accomplish this 'ritual' with far fewer people. The key is to generate a large, concentrated amount of pleasure and lust, yes? Well, I say we go for quality over quantity." Fortunately, Blake picked up at what she was saying, and followed up on it himself - she had a feeling that the new story he had shared with the Lucifex involved him being in charge, and her being merely his most beloved servant... which wasn't THAT far from the truth, she supposed. "A sound idea, my dear. If I and my loyal servants participate, that should generate significant amounts of pleasure... also, if you have a decent alchemist on hand, I should be able to lend some significant assistance to the remaining participants as well."

The Lucifex shrugged. "Well, of course we have alchemists... they have many uses. But as I mentioned, we already have herbal mixtures available that can put acolytes in the right... mindset." Blake, however, chuckled and shook his head. "I am not talking about a drug to simply make people rut 'till they drop but, rather, a draught that reinforces desire and enhances pleasure - a potent aphrodisiac that also boosts bodily sensitivity. It's an obscure thing, but I have made an extensive study of alchemy - as you said, it has many uses!" Now THAT, Anitra knew, was a bare-faced lie. Blake had never 'studied alchemy', much less extensively so - he just had an excellent memory and, like her, had spent a fair amount of time pouring over the more intriguing books found in the Library of the Perverse.

Of course, the Lucifex couldn't know that, so he just nodded pleasantly. "That sounds like it would be helpful indeed! Very well, then, it seems we have the outline of a plan. I'll send our finest alchemist to learn the recipe from you, make preparations for the ritual, and rally as many acolytes and lower tier priests as I can safely do. I suppose we'll have to host it here, under the great dome, if you are to participate, lord Blake... more work to be done with the setup, but no doubt worth it! Still, it will take days at least, perhaps as much as a week. Naturally, I will put the hospitality of our temple at the disposal of your retainers in the meantime - though I assume you would prefer to take to the nearby mountains, rather than be cooped up in here?" There was a certain hopeful rise in his voice, and Anitra almost had to giggle. Never mind the feast she'd just consumed - feeding a grown dragon on a daily basis would tax even the extensive kitchens of this place beyond their limits.

She quickly drowned her amusement, however, and raised an inquisitive eyebrow. "Looking to chase us off so soon, Lucifex? I thought we were going to talk about debts, prices and favors owed... so pardon me if I find your sudden generosity a bit surprising." In truth, though, she had a fair idea about his sudden tractability - she was just buying time. Time to stand next to Blake, look at him, hear his breath, before they had to part again - if only briefly.

I know how you feel, and I wish it could be otherwise... a voice whispered in her head, the telepathic bond that connected them, reestablished now that they were on the same plane of existence. Anitra listened intently to his mental voice even as she did her best to appear intrigued by the Lucifex's unsurprising admission that their aid in summoning such a powerful demon - as well as the formula for that pleasure enhancing tonic - would be payment enough in itself.

The Lucifex already knows that we care about each other, but we cannot risk him finding out how _ much _. However friendly his smile, only an idiot would mistake him for a reliable friend. So we will part, for now, and you can confer with Direza and Melora once you have privacy. She knew he was right, of course. Indeed, the tractability demonstrated by the vicious, old cult leader was terribly suspicious, and she could easily imagine him aiming to control her, or Blake, using the strong bond they shared... if he knew of it. I know, I know... we will make up for lost time later, when we have leisure. She sent her thoughts to him with a mental kiss, and finally nodded visibly. "I see... I suppose your lot WOULD have many uses for this demon once it has handled the task _I_need it for. In that case, I and my fellow Servants of the Black Dragon will graciously accept your hospitality, with our Master's leave..."

The rooms they were assigned were quite a bit nicer than the one she'd, briefly, stayed in during her previous visit. Probably these were for members of the Inner Circle and other cult bigwigs, rather than the simple acolyte she'd been posing as at the time. The fact that there were three neighboring rooms available on such short notice was probably additional proof of just how many of the cult's high-ranking members had supported Sharanaman during his reign from the shadows - and subsequently been a bit too slow to swear allegiance to the ascendant Lucifex. Heck, Tiffany had received a room of her own there, no more than a couple of doors down the hall - she was resting there even now, sleeping soundly after devouring a meal big enough for an army and drinking half a barrel of water... or at least, that was how the somewhat bemused servants who'd been supplying her with food and drink put it. Anitra had already popped by to check in on the sleepy girl and quickly warn her to keep her mouth shut around the Cultists, and not give away anything about what had happened in Hell.

The rooms were, of course, monitored by surveillance spells - although from what Anitra could tell, they were passive rather than active. Presumably, they'd engage if the right words were spoken - stuff like 'plot', 'assassination' or 'let's kill the Lucifex and take over'.Still, she didn't feel like doing some kind of verbal dance around potentially dangerous subjects, so she just cut apart the spells in her room with BlackFire - after all, when you happened to wield a blade that could sever magic as easily as flesh and bone, why not use it? The Lucifex could hardly complain about her refusal to be spied upon, after all.

Once privacy was thus secured, she invited Melora and Direza to her chambers for a conference - where the Drow priestess used one of her own spells to secure them against more mundane eavesdropping. Then, at last, they could drop their masks and catch up - with much crying and hugging and long-winded explanations. Direza cracked quite spectacularly, her coldly, cruel expression simply disintegrating into relieved weeping as she clung bodily to Anitra while they talked, refusing to let go. It almost seemed as if she was afraid that her beloved Mistress would be suddenly spirited away again if she did...

Melora, meanwhile, demonstrated that the illusion that provided her with her new, demonic appearance was attached to yet another ring - it had been produced back in the Utopia by an expert enchanter, with some assistance from a couple of dragons who were more than eager to help, and even advice from a Rakshasa elder. Blake himself commented over their telepathic connection - somewhat defensively - that he'd just never gotten around to really practicing illusion-class magic.

He could handle simple stuff, sure, but such a complex and detailed disguise, which would need to be maintained even when he was far away, was beyond him. "As it is, there are still limits to what it can do..." Melora admitted, pulling off the ring to reveal that underneath the demonic disguise, she was wearing pretty much the same outfit - which was to say, not a whole lot. She also needed to keep the Ring of Priap on in order to maintain the hermaphroditic part of her appearance - its enchantments had been modified by its original creator so that it now had a 'soft mode', for greater realism and subtlety.

With no-one to overhear, Anitra could finally get the whole story of what had been going on, too, without the need to carefully steer clear of certain details or skip over problematic parts. The DragonRider nodded eagerly as the full reach of events unfolded before her, and sent warm and loving telepathic thoughts to Blake as she realized just how much she'd been on his mind while she was gone. She, for her part, gave account of her adventures in Hell, her encounters with the rebellious she-demons, and everything she had learned about Legion's plots and his place in the Infernal Planes' hierarchy.

Then she pushed Direza down on the - surprisingly comfy - bed, tore off her skimpy robe and pulled aside the kinky black leather panties beneath, making the Drow whimper in anticipation even before she buried her tongue in the wet, ash-gray snatch beneath. She had - somewhat deliberately - included more details about her sexual activities than were, strictly speaking, necessary as she told her tale, ensuring that Direza would be well and truly in the mood. Blake had informed her - via telepathy, which the other two could not overhear - that the elf-girl had been, essentially, celibate since her disappearance. Blake and Melora had availed themselves freely to each other's company, reasoning that denying their base needs wouldn't do much more than harm their ability to concentrate as they sought a way to bring her back - but Direza had been too distraught by the loss of her beloved Mistress to accept Melora's kind offer to help her let off some steam now and then.

Now that the relief of reunion had finally loosened that knot, weeks of frustrated libido flowed back, and the gray-skinned girl writhed and moaned in repeated orgasms as Anitra's skilled tongue dug mercilessly into her sensitive parts. Melora watched with a gentle smile as her friend finally got some much-needed release, absently rubbing her soft cock. (Realistic though it was, the switch from soft to hard and back again was still something that was decided by twisting the ring, rather than through any kind of automatic reaction.) Still, when Anitra later - after removing the thread that bound her pussy shut with Direza's delighted help - requested the loan of the ring, she happily complied.

Shortly after, Direza was bent over the edge of the bed, loudly begging Anitra to fuck her harder and fill her with cum while her ass was roughly nailed. Despite semi-regularly playing host to Melora's thick horsecock, the orifice was still pleasantly tight around Anitra's magically summoned tool, and she groaned in pleasure even as she felt Direza shudder beneath her in yet another orgasm. It was a feeling she had sorely missed - well, not so much being on the giving end thanks to a magically induced cock, though that WAS pleasurable. But rather, the feeling of sharing such primal pleasures with her friends and loved ones. Direza wasn't Blake... but she still did love the sweet, submissive, totally-devoted elf-girl, and providing her with some long-postponed orgasms was almost as big a factor in her own pleasure as the hot, tight asshole squeezing her cock.

Of course, she also knew that the submissive drow-girl would have been missing a lot more than just the vigorous stimulation of her pussy or ass - Melora, or any number of other potential lovers, could've handled something like that. So once she reached her own climax - savoring the novelty of the male orgasm, which remained a rare treat - she quickly pulled out, and dragged Direza back and down so that she kneeled on the floor. Anitra barely had time to command the submissive elf to clean her own filth off her master's cock before the drow's shapely lips were wrapped around the hard shaft, her tongue eagerly working its way around the cum-stained head. She didn't seem terribly concerned that, for once, there actually WAS something to clean off - her normally peerless personal hygiene having apparently suffered somewhat in her Mistress' absence, with the somewhat primitive facilities offered by the dark temple no doubt contributing to this dereliction.

Twisting the magical ring on her finger, Anitra allowed her borrowed cock to shrink and soften back to its flaccid state while Direza continued to suck and lick it as part of a thorough cleaning. She couldn't say exactly why, but it seemed to her that it was somehow more humiliating for the elf-girl to so devotedly worship a flopping bit of rubbery flesh, as opposed to the majestic hard-on the ring normally equipped her with. Plus, it made the next bit easier. Digging her fingers into the drow's ivory-white hair, she (quite unnecessarily) held her head in place while she relieved herself, emptying her straining bladder down the slender, thirsty throat. There was quite a bit draining out of her - she'd drunk several gallons earlier as she hurriedly rehydrated herself after the long drought of her trip to the nether planes, and by now much of it had run its course.

And, of course, Direza drank it all down, swallowing every drop without the merest shade of reluctance. Indeed, her eyes were unfocused with a pleasure that had nothing to do with erogenous zones or orgasms as she looked up the naked, muscular body of her beloved Mistress. She was proud of the fact that she'd never coughed, gagged, or otherwise failed to fully and enthusiastically serve her beloved DragonRider whenever she was called upon to act as her personal toilet. When the flow finally stilled, her tongue eagerly sought out the last few drops that lingered, caught in the folds of the flaccid foreskin.

As soon as Anitra released her hold on the elf's head, she took advantage of this renewed freedom to move lower, kissing and sucking on the sensitive scrotum while the wet dick lay across her fine-featured face. Anitra giggled at the sight and stroked her hair, whispering something down to her that brought a sudden end to the erotic activities, making Direza suddenly cling to Anitra's leg while crying - again. Sighing, she petted the weeping drow, shaking her head, while Melora pulled herself upright and leaned over. "What did you say to her? I didn't catch it... " She said curiously, wrinkling her brow. "Just that I was happy to have my favorite toy back..." Anitra replied with a shrug and a smug smile. The half-naked horse-girl snorted and nodded, wiping something that was_probably_ just sand or maybe a hair from the corner of her eyes. "Yeah, that would do it..."

A little while later, Direza was put to bed - in her own room - soundly asleep after the emotionally draining reunion - and the physically draining orgasms. The Ring of Priap was returned to Melora's finger, and the once-again disguised mare retreated to her own room again, with the agreement that they should meet in Anitra's to discuss other sensitive matters in the future. Finally left to her own devices for a bit, she spent some time telepathically chatting with Blake, catching each other up on any remaining details of their past weeks apart, and debating what to do with the re-rescued Tiffany.

Well, we certainly can't just leave her to her own devices... she's liable to get herself kidnapped by, I dunno, maybe giants this time? Or mer-people? We haven't run into mer-people yet, have we? Blake snorted bemusedly. Anitra laughed freely, not so much at his joking around but at the fact that he actually seemed to care on some level - even if it seemed to mostly be a sort of general offense at the fact that his gracious saving of her during their first meeting, had gone to waste in such a way. Maybe if we take her back to the Utopia with us, she'll be able to manage to _ stay _saved this time... and I think she'd be a shoe-in for the free love crew, she replied, and Blake seemed to consider it for a moment before sending a mental shrug. I don't see why not. You might be a bit crowded on the way back, but I can certainly manage the added weight easily.

Their mental communication, however, was interrupted by a timid rap on the door, prompting Anitra to sit up straight and quickly pull on her discarded armor, while making sure that her sword was leaning against her chair, easily within reach. Direza or Melora wouldn't have knocked in that way... and she was staying in the temple of a group of crazy demon-worshipers. It paid to be careful. "Enter!" She then called, deliberately slouching in her chair. Expecting trouble was one thing - looking like she was expecting trouble might be dangerous in itself.

A red-robed woman entered and closed the door behind her. It took Anitra a moment to recognize her, but as she turned around, the jagged, flame-like scars on her otherwise-beautiful face tipped her off. "Chabat, isn't it? Long time no see..." she drawled, remembering the cold, haughty woman who had unwittingly provided her with the chance she needed to make her way into the cult's Inner Circle. She, herself, was clearly still clinging to the Inner Circle with her fingertips - which was an accomplishment in itself, since it had been somewhat of an open secret that she was Sharanaman's lover. She must have disavowed him with remarkable speed and conviction to avoid the sweeping purges - and even so, she'd clearly lost a lot of rank and influence. The gold-and-obsidian necklace she'd worn when they first met was gone - the only reason Anitra knew that she hadn't been fully struck from the list of the Inner Circle was the instinctive recognition afforded by her own membership.

It seemed like a fair portion of the woman's pompous arrogance had disappeared along with the pendant - where she had once marched haughtily down the dark halls of the temple, head held high, she now bowed deeply as she answered in a voice dripping with servility. "I am honored you remember me, Sister." Anitra nodded pleasantly, not rising from her chair. She was already forming a fairly solid assumption about what had brought the power-hungry priestess to her room, before she even asked. "Of course I would remember the Priestess who helped me rise to the Inner Circle... so what can I do for you tonight, Sister?" A flicker of eagerness darted across the scar-faced woman's dark eyes, confirming Anitra's suspicions. Chabat had lost a lot of power betting on the wrong horse, and she was desperate to recover it. Anitra's status, meanwhile, probably looked fairly exalted from the outside perspective - she'd just returned safe and unharmed from a 'secret mission' in the nether planes, got private audiences with the Lucifex, and apparently worked closely with a powerful drow priestess and a demonic nightmare... not to mention the seemingly-obedient black dragon she'd shown off during her last visit. Chabat had gone there hoping to trade on their old connection, aiming to recover her status and power.

Of course, she didn't word it quite that way - rather, she claimed that she was just hoping to catch up with an old friend, maybe hear some tales of her adventures... and after a moment's consideration, Anitra decided to humor her. Theoretically, Chabat would have no recourse whatsoever if she simply told her to get lost - for that matter, simply mentioning to the Lucifex that the disgraced priestess was bothering her would likely see her demoted from the Inner Circle outright, or perhaps even executed. But she knew Chabat's type. They were never more dangerous than when cornered and desperate... and also tended to be quite predictable when you dangled a suitable carrot in front of them. "The second-best thing to a reliable ally is a predictable enemy", as the saying went...

So she humored her, acting as if the ambitious priestess was an old friend indeed, telling her various anecdotes - half made-up, half accurate - of the time she had spent in the nether planes. The tantalizing glimpse of potentially useful demonological knowledge drew Chabat in like a gleaming fishing-lure, even as Anitra tried to decide what she'd DO with the vicious shark she was catching. Well, she wasn't going to be in the temple for more than a week at most - she could probably manage to simply string her along for the duration, and afterwards, Chabat would become entirely irrelevant.

Then she started noticing the signals Chabat was sending out. The way she was leaning forwards to let her breasts dangle invitingly, the way she cocked her head and ran her fingers through her long, dark hair while listening... and just the fact that the robe she wore was a lot tighter than the standard, seemingly designed to hug her curvaceous figure. She wasn't just there to try and fish for useful information and maybe a good word for the Lucifex - she was actually trying to_seduce_ her! The realization made Anitra laugh out loud, but she quickly covered it by sharing an amusing - and entirely imagined - anecdote about a demonic misadventure.

It was too good to pass up. She was an experienced seductress, but for someone to actively try to seduce her, well, that was fairly new. Anitra couldn't resist - she had to play along. Covering her intentions by jumping up in order to pantomime a battle between two demons that she'd supposedly observed, she then proceeded to sit down on the bed next to Chabat - who had 'casually' seated herself on its edge when she entered, despite there being other chairs available - instead of returning to her own chair. Then, all she had to do was send out the right signals of... receptiveness. Was Chabat just taking a shot in the dark, simply hoping that she might be into women, she wondered? Or maybe she just assumed that since she was into animals, she was enough of an all-round slut to probably be bisexual too. If so, well, that was a very foolish assumption, for all that it was perfectly accurate in this case!

Regardless, it didn't take a lot of hints - a question about how she kept her hair so nice under those hooded cloaks here, a mention of how her flame-shaped facial scaring really set off her cheekbones there - to get things moving in the right direction. Ten minutes later, they kissed. Ten minutes after that, they were gyrating together on the bed, red robe and black armor alike discarded. Chabat proved to be a surprisingly enthusiastic and skillful partner - even if her tongue couldn't match Anitra's own for sheer orgasm-inducing power - hardly a fair comparison, though, seeing as her draconic stamina enabled her to keep going long after a mere mortal would have exhausted her tongue-muscles. Either Chabat was a truly exceptional actress, she genuinely did prefer girls herself - or, more likely, both, since the later would have required her to put on a pretty good act during her longtime relationship with Sharanaman.

Or else, Anitra reasoned while she dug her fingers into the priestess' dark-brown hair, maybe she was just attracted to power more than to any single gender or particular set of physical features. Regardless, she didn't have to act much at all in order to convince Chabat that she enjoyed the sapphic attentions...

She did, however, exaggerate the degree to which the resulting orgasms mellowed her spirits, laying back against her pillow with a deliberately-vague expression on her face, curious to see what Chabat would do when her defenses seemed down. The dark priestess, chin dripping with juices, looked a bit frazzled herself, what with Anitra demonstrating the skillfulness of her own fingers to her - but her eyes remained keen, and her choice of pillow-talk was illuminating. The first thing she asked about was how exactly she had taken on such a demonic appearance. Chabat hadn't been present in the ritual-chambers where Anitra had appeared, but the story had spread like a wildfire - how she had apparently gained the powers and aspect of a demon, only to shift back to a normal human appearance after the fact...

"Oh, well, 's just a matter of absorbing enough demonic essence..." she said tiredly, trying to win some time to consider what, and how much, she should tell Chabat. "Oh... yes, I suppose that makes sense..." The power-hungry priestess replied, clearly trying not to sound TOO interested. "How do you do that, though? Sounds tricky..." Anitra giggled - normally, she tried not to, since it made her sound inane, but in this case, that was just fine. Chabat was clearly doing her best to make sure she was too distracted to consider the implications of her casual-sounding question, pushing her naked body against her side while idly stimulating her nipples by drawing circles around them with her fingers and occasionally tugging on the thick, golden rings piercing them. Shuddering in slightly-exaggerated pleasure to let her think it was working, the mumbled a reply. "Oh, it's not so hard... treat 'em right, and they're usually happy to fill you up..."

"Wait, so... sex? But that usually just results in a Hellspawn pregnancy... I've presided over a few impregnations and births in my time. Never seen any of the sacrifices display demonic traits..." Chabat was talking under her breath, clearly mostly to herself, but Anitra could hear her just fine - and she felt the bile rising in her throat. Impregnations, births and sacrifices... in other words, Chabat had personally arranged for a number of innocent captives or naive acolytes to be raped by a summoned demon, to subsequently die horribly as the resulting Hellspawn clawed its way out of the womb. In a flash, Anitra knew exactly where to guide Chabat's focused interest.

"Oh, sure, 's why you have to be careful... gotta use the other holes, ya know? 's why I sewed my pussy shut before I went down there. Didn't you notice the holes?" She said sleepily. After all, she had only removed the thread that had kept her vagina and womb safe during the frequent orgies she'd enjoyed in the nether planes after withdrawing to her room - with some help from Direza, who had delicately licked away the droplets of blood that had flowed when the thread was pulled out. By then, her Quickening had already burned out completely, so her healing-factor was low - meaning that the scars still remained, a row of tiny dots along each of her labia. "Well, wouldn't help even if it was safe to use your pussy. You need to ingest it to digest it, y'know?" She giggled again at her own joke, hoping she wasn't overplaying the 'drunk on pleasure' act.

"So... you just have anal or oral sex with a demon? That's all there is to it?" There was an eager tone in Chabat's voice, despite her best efforts to make it sound like a casual inquiry. Anitra pretended she hadn't noticed it. "Well... sorta, yeah. But you need quite a bit of 'essence' to get there - that's the hard part. Regular injections over a period of days. Afterwards, you just need to top it up every couple of days... pretty easy to maintain, at that point. Hard part is finding a cooperative demon up here! Well, that's what Nitemare is for. She's a bit ornery, but she plays along. It was thanks to her that I was able to transform myself halfway into a demon before venturing into Hell... looking human isn't a good idea down there, and you can't breathe the air either. 'course, once I was there, finding a few casual lovers to keep me going was pretty easy."

Chabat fell silent, probably contemplating her options, while Anitra continued to jabber, deliberately going down a side-track to make it clear just how unconcerned she was about the topics that had been raised. "...'course, 'she' isn't REALLY a 'she', but always using 'it' and 'they' is a bother, and I find it easier to think of her as a she what with that amazing rack... heh... and _she_doesn't seem to give a good goddamn one way or another. Same reason we just call her Nitemare. She can't be bothered with 'names' and all that..." She let her voice trail off sleepily, and the room was quiet for a minute before Chabat apparently decided that asking further was worth the risk. "Intriguing... so, this 'Nitemare'... how cooperative is she, exactly?"

Anitra tiredly waved a hand. "Eh, not very! She'll play along, but only HER way, and she always got 'conditions'..." Then she perked up. "Oh, hey, do you want to try it? Demonic infusion, I mean? I don't expect you're planning any trips to Hell, but it's kind of a trip on its own. Wielding demonic power and shit.... it's a hoot." Chabat blinked in confusion for a moment, then put on a lovely smile. "Well, that DOES sound interesting... certainly, I think I would enjoy trying that. Just to... deepen my understanding of the denizens of the nether planes..." Anitra nodded, then yawned and leaned back in her pillows. "M'kay... I'll talk to Nitemare about it t'morrow..."

She did, indeed, talk to 'Nitemare' about it the next day - along with the rest of her friends. Melora wasn't overly enthused with her part of the plan, but Direza's eyes flashed with vindictive eagerness when she heard about the things Chabat had done in the past. Blake, of course, was perfectly happy to go along. Didn't like her the first time you ran into her either. And hey, we've got some days to burn while we wait for ol' Lucifex to finish making preparations for the ritual. Providing that arrogant ass with some much-needed karma sounds like a fine way to pass the time!

Anitra herself wasn't exactly comfortable calling it 'karma', considering how long both she and Blake seemed to have dodged that particular law... and calling it 'justice' would be stretching the definition rather badly. So she settled for calling it 'revenge' - in the name of all of Chabat's victims, but particularly those who had perished through demonic impregnation. Either way, Blake had the last word as always - once he had made his opinion known, Melora fell in line without further complaints, and the details were swiftly plotted out.

And so, later in the afternoon, Anitra knocked on Chabat's door, and was welcomed by the eager-eyed priestess. She barely waited for the door to close behind her before breathlessly declaring "I thought I'd come by and let you know right away - I got it sorted out with Nitemare. Ya know, that thing we talked about last night..." Her host flashed a grin that a charitable person might have called happy, and a more realistic one called a twisted grimace of dark exultation. "Truly? She is willing to, ah... contribute the necessary essence?" Anitra nodded with a grin. "Yep. Same basic conditions as when she provided it for me. And there should be just enough time... the Lucifex, unhallowed be his Name, is making preparations for a major ritual which we will be participating in, but afterwards, we'll probably be moving on. If you get a good, solid injection of demonic essence every day until then, you should hit critical mass just in time. The demonic aspect will fade pretty quickly afterwards, of course, but at least you'll have had a chance to try it out, right?"

Chabat nodded eagerly, but then a suspicious expression flashed across her face. "Indeed, indeed, that is all I desire... but why go to such lengths for me? What do you want in return? I know I asked you about it, but truly, it was mostly just idle pillow-talk..." The split-second view of her true nature had indeed been replaced by a blithe look, as if they were discussing matters of little import. Anitra just shrugged. "Oh, I don't want anything in particular... I mean, you're a proper Inner Circle priestess, right? And way more senior than me. So, y'know, you can just owe me a favor, right? I'm sure you're good for it." The cultist, whose steadily growing plans clearly did not involve sticking around long enough for any bills to come due, nodded and flashed a pleasant smile. "Oh, of course... I never forget my debts, trust me!"

Then, eager to get down to the nitty-gritty, she leaned in closer. "So - you say that all I need to do is swallow the demon's 'essence'?" Anitra cast her face in an expression of artfully-faked confusion. "Swallow? No, no... oh, right, I guess I didn't get around to mentioning what her regular conditions were. Ah, she won't let anyone draw on her essence THAT way. Says that would 'cheapen' it. So, she'll put it in your belly, right enough, but only from the_other_ end..." A pained grimace flashed across Chabat's face. "Ah... I suppose I should have realized. You pay for it in_pain_. That is the Demon's Way, indeed..." Anitra shrugged. "Pretty much. But hey, you don't strike me as someone who is afraid to suffer for the sake of power..." with a teasing smile, she reached up to caress the flame-shaped scars that marred Chabat's cheeks. The dark priestess put on an expression she no doubt believed to be 'seductive' in response, while mostly just looking a bit sleepy. "Indeed not..."

Then her face took on a more genuine expression of uncertainty. "I am prepared to pay the price, of course, but I must admit to being... a bit worried about the magnitude of the task. Is Nitemare... equipped as one would expect?" Anitra giggled. "You mean, is she hung like a horse? Well, you know about my... past experiences, so I can say with confidence: Yes, yes she is." Dipping her voice in concern, she then wrinkled her brow. "Oh... but I guess you don't have as much experience in that regard... might be a rough time for you, at least at first." Chabat flashed her a pained smile. "I... expect I will. I do not, indeed, have your... breadth of experience to draw upon."

Rubbing her chin thoughtfully, Anitra pretended to ponder the issue for a few seconds, then brightened up. "Oh, I know! You have an on-site alchemist, right? Or several, even?" Chabat quickly confirmed this, which Anitra indeed already knew. "Well, then you can probably get your hands on some basic healing salve, right?" Chabat, looking a bit confused, nodded. "Of course - we keep plenty of it around. It's handy for closing wounds after blood-sacrifices and such - as well as dealing with more serious injuries if a demon goes rampant, or adventurers invade..." Leaning in to wrap an arm around the red-cloaked cultist's narrow shoulders, Anitra grinned and made a grand gesture. "Well, there's your solution, then - grab a nice tub of that stuff beforehand, and use it for lubricant. Cake it on good and thick! Helps to keep down friction, rapidly closes any minor tears that might develop, and reduces the pain. Classic trick - I've used it a few times myself. It's handy for afterwards, too, if you're feeling sore..."

That night, Anitra waited in her room, wondering if her prediction would be correct. She listened as someone knocked softly on the door of the neighboring chambers, and were let in. Then she listened to the moans, groans, and muted shrieks of pain that filtered through her walls over the course of the next hour. Then, a little while after it had finally gotten quiet, a hesitant knocking could be heard on her own door, and she silently congratulated herself for guessing right. Opening the door, she found Chabat standing outside it, looking sweaty and bedraggled, her hair a mess and her legs obviously shaky. "Chabat! Something wrong? You look like you've had a bit of a rough ride..." she asked with carefully faked concern. The dark priestess nodded choppily, her lips vibrating as she tried to force them into the approximate shape of a smile. "Ah, yes... indeed... I fear I may not have used quite enough of the salve. And I'm finding it... difficult to reach... so while I hate to impose on you after you've already been so generous as to arrange this opportunity for me..." She was switching her weight frequently from one leg to the other, wincing every time, and Anitra quickly nodded with a grave look. "Of course, of course, think nothing of it... come in, lie down on my bed, I'll lather on a good layer for you."

A minute later, Chabat was on her bed, stretched out on her belly with her red robes clustered around her midsection, and Anitra was sitting between her spread legs with the tub of healing salve, looking down at Melora's handiwork with a vicious grin that, fortunately, her 'patient' couldn't see. Using healing salve for a sexual lubricant was something she'd gotten from a book found in the Library of the Perverse - specifically, the 'never, ever do this' section. Between stopping bleeding and deadening the nerves, the salve did a superb job of preventing you from realizing if and when you pushed your body beyond its limits... making it possible to cause severe damage while remaining entirely unaware, and at the same time, the accelerated healing promoted by the salve could make the damage permanent, preventing more sophisticated healing-magics from setting this right.

Indeed, while Chabat clearly was in pain, she just as clearly had no idea of just how badly she'd been mangled. "Hey, Chabat... can't you reach down and pull your bum-cheeks apart for me? It'd make it much easier for me to work." With a slight groan, the woman obeyed, and Anitra grinned broadly as she watched the ragged sphincter between those two flat buttocks emerge from the crack like a rolled-up sleeve. The once-tight ring was severely swollen and visibly throbbing, bruised dark-red to deep purple. Her untried, inexperienced, unprepared and thoroughly-human sphincter had clearly suffered greatly under Melora's horse-like girth - a near-inevitability considering that the advice its owner had gotten from her more experienced 'sister' was to lube up with a painkiller, rather than something actually sensible such as working her way up to that girth with gradual, step-by-step stretching.

Humming quietly, she spread more healing salve over the pulsating edges of the gaping hole, and heard Chabat sigh in relief. The kind of deep muscle-damage that had clearly been inflicted was well beyond the reach of the simple salve - all it could do was deaden the pain. "I'm betting it's worse deeper inside, right? 's always hard to get the salve spread properly in there by yourself..." she said conversationally, and the dark haired woman groaned in agreement. Covering her hand and forearm with the greasy salve, she felt her skin tingle and deaden at its touch - and then pushed her hand slowly, deliberately into the already-tortured anus. It popped inside with barely any resistance - even the hilt of her hand wasn't as wide as Melora's shaft, after all - and even with her reduced sensitivity, she could still feel how the damage continued well past the obvious. Areas of raw, scarred tissue were everywhere, in places where the overstretched intestine had torn, and then been forcibly healed by the layer of lubricating salve.

It was only when she had most of her forearm inside that she started encountering exceptions. Deeper inside, at the point where the healing salve either hadn't reached or - more likely - had already expended all its effects, were bleeding patches of weeping tissue, which could still, potentially, be set right by a sufficiently skilled healer. She carefully spread the fresh payload of salve covering her hand over those areas, and heard Chabat sigh in relief and satisfaction as the damage to her body was set in stone. Finished, she pulled her arm back out of the numbed orifice, and wiped it off on a moist towel she'd just happened to have handy, certainly not because she'd known exactly what sort of condition the twisted cultist would be in when she arrived or anything... "There!" she declared, giving one of the flat buttocks a quick slap once Chabat had released them. "That should do it. Now, why don't you turn around and show me how much you appreciate my help, hmm?" The twisted cultist, still eager to stay on her good side, quickly complied - and she was glad she didn't need to hide her broad smile as the oblivious woman licked her to a triumphant orgasm.

"Oh... by the way... Nitemare said something when I was leaving... something about how she'd 'let me off' this time, but would be expecting me to 'pay in full' next time I came to her door..." Chabat asked afterwards, wiping Anitra's juices from her scarred cheeks. Anitra, who had been starting to wonder if Melora had forgotten that part of the plan, or if Chabat - knocked off balance by the rough reaming - had simply missed it, quickly nodded. "Oh yeah. That's part of the basic deal, too. Afterwards, she usually demands some sort of gesture of respect and obeisance - a bit of a massage for her demonic pride, to help cover up the fact that she's basically 'performing on demand'. It can be all kinds of stuff... usually pretty humiliating, though. Of course, since you already got what you came for, you can always refuse and just leave - she can't stop you without breaking the Contract that binds her to this world. But keep in mind that if you do that, she's liable to demand a different sort of payment before she'll let you soak up another load of 'essence'... something less humiliating and more painful." Chabat nodded, looking somewhat concerned. "That's... certainly worth keeping in mind. I suppose it's no surprise that a powerful demon like her would demand some concessions to her pride, though. I'm sure it's nothing I can't handle..."

The next night, after another noisy, hour-long session next door, Chabat returned to Anitra's chambers, walking just as delicately as before, but now with a faintly nauseous look on her face. She gestured silently towards the bed with a lifted eyebrow, prompting her guest to throw herself down there with a groan, red robes once again pulled up to her waist. Anitra didn't ask what payment 'Nitemare' had demanded for her services this night - she didn't need to, since she'd planned it all out with Melora in advance. Was it the first time Chabat had gone ass-to-mouth, she wondered? Well, that the very least, it was certainly the first time she'd been faced with having to lick clean a horse-sized cock that had just spent nearly an hour exploring the deepest reaches of her ass. As she opened the tub of healing salve, Anitra idly wondered how many of the planned humiliations the once-proud demon worshiper would willingly suffer before she seized the alternative that Anitra so thoughtfully had presented her with.

The woman's tormented anus looked even worse than yesterday - which was hardly a surprise, since it obviously hadn't had a chance to do any significant healing from the earlier damage. It was misshapen and wrinkled, bruised purple throughout and shot through with enlarged veins as it poked out from the crack. As she ran her salve-covered fingers over it, she could feel how the muscles inside had hardened in response to the repeated trauma. It actually put up a bit of resistance as she pushed her slimy hand inside, but soaked through with painkillers as it was, Chabat probably didn't even notice.

The insides were just the same as before - albeit with a fresh selection of tears and scars. The magically-healed scar-tissue that had been created yesterday was tougher than the surrounding tissue, and so Melora's rampaging cock had inflicted a number of new injuries, rather than simply reopening the old ones. At this rate, Chabat's lower colon would be a solid mass of rough scar tissue long before the week was up. And still, she remained blissfully unaware of the worsening state of her body, sighing with satisfaction and gratitude as the numbing salve was applied to the deepest depths of her ass, soaking into the absorbent tissue.

On the third night, there was a fair sized time-gap between the end of the loud, sexual acrobatics in Melora's chambers, and Chabat knocking on Anitra's door. She wasn't surprised at that. The amused DragonRider knew that the cultist had spent about half that quiet time with her tongue lodged up the disguised mare's pungent asshole, licking it clean - meaning that she'd probably spent the other half of that time finding some water with which to wash out her mouth. All of that in spite of the fact that she was walking as tenderly as ever. It seemed increasingly unlikely that the proud priestess would be able to get through the humiliation planned for the _following_evening... which meant that the evening after that would turn unpleasant indeed.

Chabat seemed in a poor mood as Anitra spread a fresh layer of healing salve over her increasingly-ruined asshole. The skin around the swollen, scrunched-up sphincter was looking strained and wrinkled, showing clear effects of the repeated stretching it had undergone. Her ass-crack was losing its definition, too, having been mostly swallowed up by the growing, ragged-edged crater. She'd seen worse, but... only once. "Be honest... how bad is it?" Chabat asked, wincing as Anitra once again pushed her lubed-up hand into the ragged orifice. "Oh, not bad at all..." she answered lightly. "Probably feels a lot worse than it really is, what with you being so inexperienced at this."

"Right..." the scar-faced woman said hesitantly. "It's just that... I've noticed that when I go to the toilet, it's rather... liquid. And part of my insides kind of... pop out, so I have to stuff it back inside afterwards. I find that a touch... worrying." Anitra chuckled, keeping her voice calm and light. "Ah yes, that's called a 'prolapse'. It's pretty common - some folks are actually really into it, I've heard! I can see how it'd be worrying, but it's really no big deal... just a natural reaction to getting your ass stretched a bit. It'll stop happening once you give your body a chance to rest. Same deal with the diarrhea. Just make sure to drink plenty of water in the meantime, yeah?"

Chabat's worries seemed allayed by this confident statement, spoken with all the authority of experience and, as usual, Anitra received a pleasant round of cunnilingus and the resultant climax for her troubles. Still, if she'd started asking those questions, it was time to throw in an additional bit of sleigh-of-hand. Or sleigh-of-ass, as the case may be.

The next day, Anitra popped over to the neighboring room to talk to Melora well before Chabat's regularly-scheduled session. The statuesque horse-girl was still rather unhappy with the whole affair, as it turned out. "It's fortunate indeed that the Ring of Priap enables me to remain hard regardless of the circumstances, for I certainly find it hard to get particularly aroused by this... torture-regimen you've got me inflicting on that woman." She snorted, shaking her mane. "I can't say she doesn't _deserve_it - especially not after some of the things she's said during her constant attempt to impress 'Nitemare' - but I can't find any joy in being the one who has to dole out her punishment."

"I'd take your place in an instant if I could!" Anitra wholeheartedly declared, patting Melora on the shoulder. Her own sadistic streak wasn't quite as wide as Blake's (who had been listening eagerly every time she mentally updated him on the 'progress'), but at least she_had_ one, unlike Melora - who was, after all, far more comfortable on the receiving end of torture. Alas, the 'Nitemare' illusion wouldn't work for Anitra, and even if it did, she wasn't 'equipped' for the task - the Ring of Priap could grant her a perfectly functional dick, and a reasonably large one by human standards at that... which was well short of the girth required for this particular mission.

Still, while she certainly made no secret out of her dislike for the situation, Melora wasn't about to drop out, and she had no additional objections to Anitra's plans for the evening. If anything, she seemed to actually cheer up a little bit. "It'll be nice to be able to just enjoy myself for a bit..." she commented playfully. And so, as evening approached, she positioned herself in a chair facing the door and twisted the magical ring on her finger to make her thick, equine cock spring to life. Anitra eagerly climbed on top of her. Other than her nightly sessions with Chabat, she mostly spent her idle hours playing around with Direza, having still been unable to sneak away from the temple long enough to spend some quality-time with Blake. Thus, even if she had a specific reason to engage in this particular round of butt-fucking, she still intended to enjoy it fully.

Leaning back against Melora's muscular belly, her shoulders cushioned by the large, heavy tits above, she planted her feet on the horse-girl's sturdy knees and - with a firm pair of hands on her hips helping along - began to ride the long, thick cock lodged deeply in her ass. Soon, she was panting, feeling the pleasure rise inside her bowels. Behind her, Melora was likewise getting aroused - judging by her rapid breathing, anyway. The hands on her hips got firmer, slowing her oscillating up-down movement - it wouldn't do to push things too far, too fast. It'd still be a little while before Chabat arrived, assuming she was punctual.

With an annoyed groan, Anitra reached down between her widely-spread thighs and began rubbing her clit and slit, even as she continued to ride the meat column in her ass as roughly as its wielder would allow. Melora had to hold off, but she was free to cum as much as she liked - and so she did, moaning and spraying her hot juices across the floor. She was well on her way to a second climax when, preceded by a perfunctory rap on the door, Chabat entered the room and froze in surprise. Pleasure-soaked as her mind was, it took Anitra a moment to remember her lines - but she managed to twist her grimace of ecstasy into an apologetic smile. "Ah... Chabat... is it this late already? Sorry... I'd planned to be done before it was your turn... ahhh!"

The final bit wasn't part of her prepared lines, but rather a natural response to feeling about a gallon of hot horse-cum pour into her bowels. As soon as Chabat had knocked on the door, Melora had pulled all the stops, and indeed started pounding Anitra harder and faster than she could've done on her own. Since she'd been holding back for a while, it took mere seconds for this treatment to get her off. Groaning in pleasure, she leaned back against the illusion-disguised horse-girl, folding her legs up against her chest so that she now rested on the upraised cock with her full weight. Melora was balls-deep in her - sheath and all. Chabat goggled at the sight.

Then, with a rough shove, 'Nitemare' lifted Anitra clear of her cock and grunted "There - you've had your fun. Now show me your appreciation, and begone." Agilely, Anitra landed neatly on her feet and flashed a grin over her shoulder. "Of course, of course... you've got another customer to look after, I know how it is." Then she spun around and bent over the still rock-hard horse-cock to plant a big, sloppy kiss on its tip, delicately sucking a mouthful of left-behind cum out of the thick urethra. In the process, she flashed Chabat a perfect view of her asshole... looking pretty as a picture. Between her inhuman elasticity and the accelerated healing of the Quickening - which had caused any sign of wear or tear to disappear in a matter of seconds - there was nothing to indicate that she'd just been roughly sodomized by a horse-person.

Then she straightened up, grabbed her cult-robes - which had been carelessly discarded on the floor, and strode out the door while giving Chabat a pat on the shoulder in passing. "She's all yours, buddy!" The cultist nodded hesitantly, then shrugged and stepped towards 'Nitemare' even as the door swung shut behind Anitra. No doubt, the sight she'd just seen had gone a long way towards quieting any concerns she might have had about the state of her rear end - after all, if Anitra could bounce back like that, with nary a mark, then it couldn't be THAT much worse for her, could it?

Certainly, it was clearly something else that worried the scar-faced cult priestess when she knocked on Anitra's door an hour and change later, stumbling in to take her, by now, customary place on the bed while her hostess unscrewed the lid of the healing salve jar. "Did you have to taunt her like that right before I got there? I think she was even rougher than usual this time... it kind of stings..." she complained, while Anitra nodded sympathetically. "Sorry, sorry... I really meant to be done and gone before you showed up. Helping you with this just kind of reminded me of how much fun messing around with her was, you know? So... you know..." She spoke mildly while gazing down in admiration at the result of her and Melora's shared labors.

Chabat's asshole was literally in pieces. The sphincter, hardened and swollen with accumulated damage, had finally fractured under the rough treatment, tearing in several places. As Chabat pulled her ass-cheeks apart as usual, the ring came apart in five ragged pieces, each sporting fresh, pink edges. 'Kinds of stings', indeed. The deadening salve had properly soaked in by now. Humming slightly, Anitra applied more, careful to cover the wound-edges. The salve that Chabat used as a basic lubricant had prevented them from bleeding much at all, but more would be needed if she wanted to make sure they healed as they were, rather than growing back together. When, as usual, she pushed a hand holding a generous dollop of salve into the depths of Chabat's ass - even taking care to shove some around the bend at the bottom - she watched with satisfaction as the fractured asshole parted around the thicker middle of her arm, taking her up to the elbow without trouble.

Sighing with relief as the salve once again deadened her battered insides, Chabat was silent for a few minutes - then sighed again, in a less pleased way. "It's not just that she was rough, either... at the end, she asked for... more than I could give. I suppose I should be expecting some even rougher handling tomorrow." Anitra nodded sympathetically. So she hadn't been willing to choke down a bladderful of fresh, hot, horse piss, then? Not unexpected. Hopefully, Melora would be able to dole out the planned 'punishment' without wincing too much. "Ah, well... you're a sturdy girl, I'm sure you'll be fine. Her bindings mean that she can't REALLY hurt you, after all. Not in any permanent way, at least. And pain is a passing thing, no?"

Pulling her salve-lubricated arm back out, she paused as if thoughtful. "Tell you what... if you're worried about how rough Nitemare is likely to get with you, why don't you swing by here before you visit her, instead of after? I can give you a more thorough coating than you can manage yourself. Take some of the edge off, yeah?" Chabat thought that was a splendid idea, of course. And she brightened up even more when Anitra casually suggested that, with the way she'd been going, she might start to see early signs of the transformation as early as tomorrow...

After the power-hungry cult-priestess had left, Anitra found herself pondering how easy it had been. Chabat seemed strangely gullible for someone who'd not only survived, but actually prospered within the paranoia-heavy upper reaches of the Bloody Dawn Cult. On the other hand, taking into account the arrogance that still smoldered under her pretenses of mild-mannered obsequiousness, maybe it made sense... after all, when Anitra had first visited the Temple, she'd put on the persona of an unassuming, mild-mannered farmgirl with a perverted streak - seduced by the Cult's promises, as many before her. And Chabat had eaten it up without hesitation.

With sufficient mental acrobatics, everything that had happened since could still be fitted into that setup. Her involvement in the Cult's internal power-struggle? Clearly, she had just blundered into it out of ignorance, and become a useful tool for the Lucifex simply because Sharanaman hadn't had a chance to explain to her how things _really_worked yet. A secret mission to Hell itself, and returning alive from it? Obviously, the Lucifex had sent her on it because he knew she was perverted enough to accept the requirements for it without complaint, and too unambitious to take advantage of the opportunity it offered to betray him. Hanging out with her current crew? Well, since the Cult had found her to be such a useful tool, it was hardly surprising that demons, dragons and drow alike had reached the same conclusion. They were all just using her... just like Chabat herself was.

Of course, that was all kinds of ridiculous... but admitting that you'd been wrong, that someone had successfully conned you and turned you into an eager stooge, was hard. Devastating to your self-image. For someone as prideful as Chabat... virtually impossible. So of course, she'd jump through all the necessary mental hoops to construct a narrative wherein she'd never been wrong, never been tricked, and indeed was now the one doing the tricking. In short, there was no easier mark for a con, than someone who fancied herself a con-artist...

Unsurprisingly, in the early evening of the next day Chabat returned to Anitra's bed for a pre-coital coating. This gave Anitra her first look at what the cultist's battered asshole looked like when it wasn't freshly fucked and coated in various flavors of goo. It almost looked worse, she decided as she began to apply the healing salve - mostly because it was so clear, then, that the damage was anything but temporary. The fractured pieces of her sphincter were shriveled, wrinkly things that looked like worn shoe-leather, and the surrounding skin seemed to be one big, circular stretch mark. Slime constantly oozed from the tears inside the rectum, leaking out - a fact Chabat had noticed and countered by lining her underwear with the same folded cotton pads she normally used to handle her period. "Perfectly normal - it's just your body compensating for the frequent intrusion by overproducing the slime that normally coats your insides. It'll stop once you grow accustomed to it, or once you take enough of a break for your ass to pull itself back together..." she reassured her.

True to her promise, Anitra applied a far more thorough layer of the nerve-deadening salve than Chabat herself could have managed - and indeed, the salve she was using was an extra-strength version she'd requested directly from one of the cult's alchemists. The healing effect wasn't noticeably greater than the average stuff, of course, but it was an even more effective painkiller, and she liberally covered Chabat's ass outside and inside, pushing generous amounts into the depths, scooping it around the bend to soak into the still intact portions of her intestine, while watching the woman's ruined asshole easily part around her elbow. Finally, she sent her 'sister' on her way, assuring her that she was welcome to swing by _after_her session with Nitemare, too, if she felt she needed it.

A few minutes after Chabat had left, Anitra stealthily snuck after her. It wasn't part of the plan, but... she just really wanted to see_the next part. Knowing with fair accuracy what was going on in the neighboring room, she felt quite confident that she could get her voyeuristic jollies off with minimal risk - the hallway was quiet as usual, what with the low occupancy of this row of chambers and the late hour, and she knew that both of the room's residents would be facing away from the door. Heck, even if some random cultist DID spot her, so what? She'd earned a reputation as a pervert _last time she was here, so adding 'voyeur' to that wouldn't make much of a difference. With that in mind, she carefully, quietly, opened the door a crack and peered inside.

Chabat was bent over the side of a small, sturdy table - face-down, spread-eagled and in the process of being tied down. Her wrists had already been fastened to the top of two of the table's legs with coils of rough rope, and Melora - in her 'Nitemare' disguise - was currently binding her ankles to the bottom of the two remaining legs. That forced position left her fully exposed and helpless, the edge of the table digging into her abdomen just above her pussy - but she'd clearly still agreed to it, when 'Nitemare' made it clear that unless she accepted this punishment, there'd be no more 'essence infusions' for her. Most likely, she was expecting a harsh spanking. She would be disappointed on that count.

After double-checking her work to make sure that neither arms nor legs would come loose without help, Melora rose and removed one of the leather straps that made up her 'shirt'. Chabat steeled herself... but 'Nitemare' simply approached her head and offered her the strap. "Here... bite down on this. Wouldn't want you to accidentally bite off your tongue. That would breach my contract..." From her vantage point, Anitra couldn't see the cultist's face, but she imagined that worry and consternation would be chasing each other across it as she hesitantly bit down on the dirty, sweat-soaked strip of leather.

Then Melora positioned herself behind the tied-down cultist, took a deep breath - and delivered a solid, powerful kick directly into the woman's exposed groin. Her real hooves might not have been QUITE as nasty as the lumps of ragged obsidian that served her illusory counterpart as feet, but they were still hard as steel, and her kind had very strong legs. The heavy wooden table that Chabat was tied to lifted several inches off the floor, and a keening, high-pitched noise emerged from around the double-layered leather strip in her mouth. Her legs vibrated visibly as the table settled back on the floor with a loud clonk, her knees bending as she instinctively struggled to close her legs and protect her sensitive parts, but the ropes held firm, denying her that mercy.

Anitra almost had to wince through the sadistic smile that creased her lips. Most men probably didn't realize that, while less likely to cause permanent damage, a solid blow to the privates was really just as painful for women as for men. Well, no one who saw Chabat writhe in her bonds after that kick would be in any doubt as to how much that kick had hurt - and she barely had the chance to get her breath back before Melora balled her right hand into a fist, took a step forwards, and performed a textbook body-blow, with all her weight behind it, into her throbbing slit. Her arms weren't quite as strong as her legs, but they were plenty powerful and there was a lot of mass behind that blow - enough to once again lift the table, if only a little bit... and send it skidding a solid foot across the floor on the two legs that remained grounded.

The table had barely stopped rocking before Melora delivered the follow-up - taking another step forwards, left fist pulled back, she crouched low before performing an overblown uppercut that any mobile opponent would have danced around. In this case, though, her target was stationary, and the technique put the strength of both her arm AND her legs into the strike. The low angle also ensured that it landed somewhat higher on Chabat's pussy - near the top, where the clit, urethra, and other extra-sensitive parts were.

While it was probably as much due to the angle of attack as the sheer force, the results were nonetheless spectacular. The table's rear rose far more than inches, the two remaining legs skidding _backwards_across the floor, creaking dangerously as the weight of the whole table - plus one very sorry cultist - bore down on them. It teetered there for a moment, and finally slammed down on its front - leaving Chabat to stare empty-eyed at the floor as she reeled from the pain in her bruised groin. Melora sighed, shook her head, and grabbed the table-legs to pull it back in the upright position.

The battered cult-priestess hung loosely from the ropes as the table was flipped right-side-up. It did not appear that her history of dark rituals and self-mutilation had adequately prepared her for such a violent assault on her genitals. And it wasn't quite over yet. Taking a step back, Melora shifted her stance before bringing up her left leg in another forceful kick, this one aimed a bit further forwards so that the full length of the bound woman's tortured cunt would bear the impact of her shins, while the hoof itself impact just above. She shuddered in the ropes, retching through the leather strap she still held clenched in her teeth, as this final blow made her lose control of her body's functions - with a hiss, a stream of steaming piss emerged from her groin, splattering across the floor.

Melora shook her head and sighed, rumbling in the gravelly voice of 'Nitemare'. "A mere four strokes, one from each of my limbs, and already your body fails you... you humans are so fragile. I suppose I had best stop there, then - and give you what you came for." With a twist of the Ring of Priap, she made her equine shaft rise to attention behind her loincloth and stepped forwards, impaling Chabat's torn-open, salve-lubricated ass then and there, leaving her tied down to the table with piss dripping down the inside of her thighs as she began to fuck her with violent strength.

Indeed, Melora was pounding her harder than ever, leaning over her helpless body to maximize her leverage, throwing her rock-hard shaft into the already wrecked rectum like a battering ram being swung at a castle's gates. Bit by bit, her thrusts lengthened as more of her cock disappeared into the fractured orifice. Between the vast amounts of high-strength salve Anitra had spread over the deepest reaches of that wrecked hole, and the agony that had to still be radiating out from her freshly-battered pussy (which was already swelling with a rainbow's worth of multicolored bruises), it was unlikely that Chabat had even the faintest notion of just what kind of damage her lower digestive system was currently suffering...

Anitra still clearly remembered the first night she'd spent with Blake... or, well, the early parts of it, anyway. Towards the end, with the Quickenings and the rush of her transformation layered on top of each other, things got a bit foggy. But she certainly remembered the feeling of his colossal cock invading her ass, straightening it, rearranging her insides to force her body to accommodate it. The changes that had been wrought on that night remained - indeed, her ability to easily handle Melora's equine member, and many others of similar scale, was simply a side-effect of her body's adaption to Blake's equipment.

But she was a DragonRider - she had been made to handle dragon-sized cocks. By the hands of a power-mad god, specifically - as she had recently learned. While that first adjustment certainly had been painful, her inhuman body was fully equipped to handle it. Chabat was not so lucky. She was just a human, albeit a, arrogant, sociopathic and ambitious one. Rearranging her insides to accommodate Melora's full length meant tearing her intestines loose from the binding tissue that surrounded it, pushing some aside to straighten and lengthen the lowest part, even as it was deformed and stretched by repeated impact. Internal bleeding was inevitable, although with healing salve so liberally soaked into the entire region, it wasn't going to be life-threatening. On the other hand, it also ensured that her insides would quickly heal in their new configuration, making it both difficult and dangerous for even a master-class healer to put it right again.

Anitra stuck around long enough to watch Melora bottom out - her rough sheath slipping past the ruined vestiges of Chabat's sphincter while the heavy, dangling ballsack swung into the sore, bruised pussy below, no doubt causing some small shudders of pain. At that point, for all intents and purposes, Chabat's rectum had been thoroughly and permanently wrecked, never again to function to its designed purpose. Considering its rough, scar-covered insides, and the completely loose conditions of the outer hole, it wouldn't even make for a very good fuckhole - which, combined with her general distaste for the situation as a whole, was the reason why it took Melora so long to get off.

For the rest of her life, Chabat would have to wear a diaper, or track slime and semi-liquid shit wherever she went. She'd have to drink lots and lots of water, and eat extra salt, to replace what the ruined parts of her colon would be failing to absorb. Every visit to the bathroom would result in a gurgling, liquid spattering, and probably a foot or so of her lower intestines turning itself inside out and popping out of her rear in a sausage-like prolapse that only the most perverted fetishist could possibly find attractive - necessitating, of course, the use of her fingers or some conveniently phallic object for pushing it back inside her when she was done.

Having seen what she wanted, Anitra just didn't feel like continuing the peepshow for the half-odd hour it would take Melora to reach an orgasm under these circumstances. The only reason to do so would be to catch the humiliating exclamation mark at the end of the session, where Chabat would be ordered to lick up the by-then cool urine that had pooled on the floor between her legs earlier - and, with the price of disobedience so fresh in mind, likely comply. But alas, that would involve too much movement and thus too great a risk that Chabat might notice her friendly 'sister cultist' peeping from the door...

Instead, she waited in her own chambers, relaxing and listening to the grunts and thuds from next door, until they finally culminated in a drawn-out groan and a long silence. Eventually, she heard the door open and close - but no knocking on her own. Apparently, Chabat did not feel that she required fresh care in the aftermath, which meant...

You ready, Blake? Chances are, she's heading out now. She sent her thoughts out through the thick basalt walls of the temple, and swiftly got her reply. Aye - I'm in the air now, keeping an eye on the temple grounds. No matter where she goes, she'll see what I want her to see.

It was unlikely that there were any actual mirrors anywhere in the Temple of the Bloody Dawn. Such things were expensive luxuries by most accountings, and didn't fit into the fairly Spartan lifestyle that the majority of the cultists followed. Furthermore, higher Devils were known to use mirrors for a variety of insidious purposes, from communications - which was dangerous enough all by itself when there was a Devil on the other end - to outright transportation. So even if anyone here was able to get their hands on a mirror, they probably wouldn't be stupid enough to bring it into the cult's central compound. Hence, if Chabat wanted to check if she was making any progress towards demonhood, the logical place to go was to the ponds of dark water that dotted the outer compound, currently lit by moon and stars.

And so she did, not knowing that far above her, Blake was coasting on the midnight breeze, wings still and silent, ready to work his magic. While he didn't have the skills to create an illusion that endured without his direct presence, he was quite capable of twisting the image in a moonlit pond while looking down at it from above. Of course, he had to be careful not to show Chabat anything she could easily confirm by touch - so no giving her great, curling horns, a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth, and a pair of wide, bat-like wings. He had to be more... subtle, and take advantage of the admittedly impressive human capacity for self-deception. A pair of small bumps on the forehead, indicating the start of horn growth, well, she'd probably convince herself she could feel them when she ran a hand over the area. Same thing went for lengthening her canines, giving her a vaguely vampiric smile and shifting her skin tone a bit towards the red.

But it was in the stuff she couldn't confirm without an actual mirror that he could really go whole-hog. He made the scars on her face glow like liquid fire, and turned the sclera of her eyes black, while providing equally-fiery irises. It was quite impressive just how much a pair of eyes like that did to make her look demonic, all by themselves. Certainly, she seemed pleased with what he was showing her - dancing around triumphantly under the moonlight, pumping her fist in the air and showing no sign of the soreness that had to be lingering in her groin from 'Nitemare's rough treatment. Well, as Anitra had said at the outset, she was hardly unaccustomed to trading pain for power - so now that she had 'confirmation' that it was working, all those sacrifices would seem perfectly worth it.

In retrospect, it was probably entirely unnecessary... but when they first planned the deception, they couldn't very well know _exactly_how quickly Chabat's body would give out under the daily assault on her anus, so they'd erred on the side of caution. Plus, it gave Blake a chance to get directly involved, instead of just getting Anitra's second-hand account over their telepathic bond, and he seemed quite pleased with that - so there really wasn't any reason to cancel the planned 'fake mirror-image' trick, even if it wasn't strictly speaking necessary. Well, that, and it was just plain funny to hear about how she'd jumped for joy, delighting in her fake transformation... perhaps it didn't exactly qualify as 'poetic justice' for all the young girls she'd deceived to a gory fate, but it certainly seemed appropriate. Had those girls been just as happy when Chabat spun tales of power and glory for them on the way to the ritual-chamber? Who knew...

The next evening, Chabat came by Anitra's chambers for another pre-coital salve application, and she was careful to act suitably impressed with her 'transformation'. "Looking good, sister! Another couple of loads should complete the basic infusion." Chabat grinned widely as she walked over to the bed to lie down. "Indeed... I can already feel the power of the Demon churning inside me, and I have noticed the acolytes looking at me with awe." Anitra had to be careful to silence her snickers as she once again spread a thick layer of healing salve over the cracked, crater-like orifice that was Chabat's thoroughly-ruined anus. What she felt 'churning inside' was probably the result of having several mildly bruised organs, a digestive-system that was no longer functioning at optimal efficiency, and a minor case of abdominal bleeding. As for the looks the acolytes were giving her, those were likely the result of the spreading rumors - about her nightly visit to the chambers of the obviously well-hung Nitemare, and the loud sex-noises that could be heard from within for hours afterwards. Well, that probably earned her some awe - they were demon worshipers, after all - but only with a healthy heap of scorn on the side. The cultists were probably calling her all sorts of names behind her back by now... and since her ruthless ambitiousness and past affiliation with the late Sharanama kept her isolated even within the organization , she wasn't likely to actually talk to anyone and thus discover the true reason for their gazes.

As she casually pushed her arm into Chabat's asshole past the elbow, thrusting her fist into the depths of her battered rectum to apply the salve to the newly stretched, scarred and deformed portion of the rearranged intestines, she mentioned that the ritual she'd been waiting on was slated for the next day. "Big, orgiastic deal. I'll be participating, of course, alongside my companions. What about you?" "Well... participation is optional for members of the inner circle... and I don't usually join in those kinds of Rituals. I worry about how it would affect my reputation." Chabat answered hesitantly, and Anitra once again had to carefully strangle a bark of laughter. "Oh, I suppose I can see that... but ya know, I'm pretty sure I can arrange to have you partnered with Nitemare. You could get another 'infusion of essence' that way, without having to pay for it in the usual way. As long as you don't piss her off tonight, anyway..."

Presumably realizing that this 'infusion' was likely to be the last bit she needed to complete her transformation - and that she might not get a chance to do so otherwise since Anitra had told her, at the outset, that she and her companions were likely to leave immediately after the ritual, Chabat quickly changed her tone at that point. The ritual was an 'all hands on deck' affair, after all! She needed to show that she was willing to do what was necessary for the betterment of the 'church', right? "Okay then - I'll drop a word or two with the Lucifex, and make the necessary arrangements. Might disappoint a few acolytes who'd hoped for a chance to sample Nitemare's skills, but rank hath its privileges, right?"

Anitra felt no need to peer into Melora's room that night. It wasn't as if there'd be much to see. Chabat's ass was already as ruined as it could get - stretched and broken to the point where it now fit neatly around the horse-girl's thick, equine member. Not matter how brutally 'Nitemare' pounded her tonight, it wouldn't have much of a lasting impact. And the capstone at the end of the day wouldn't be particularly visible - unless one was close enough to the action to watch Chabat's throat work as she swallowed the contents of Melora's bladder, fresh from the tap. There was little doubt that this time, between the 'carrot' of one final session that would complete her transformation and the 'stick' of the painful pussy punishment, she's do what she had earlier refused to, choking down the sour, acrid liquid.

The next day, the long-awaited ritual, which would summon a demonic creature capable - with suitable enticement - of leeching off the demonic corruption that clung to her womb, was finally to take place. And not a moment too soon, in Anitra's opinion. The DragonRider had kept busy over the past week, and not just with managing the 'Utterly ruin Chabat's asshole' plan. Other than exploring the extensive, labyrinthine hallways of the temple, she had spent a fair amount of time with Direza, having her libido - frustrated by her continued separation from Blake - seen to.

She'd also spent some of her abundant free time chatting with Tiffany, who - somewhat understandably - tried her best to avoid the red-robed cultists that made up the mainstay of the temple's population, and thus was rather short on company... though this had made it easier for her to follow Anitra's initial request for keeping quiet on certain matters. The battered girl had recovered rapidly and calmed down a lot once Anitra had promised to bring her along to a safe, friendly place where she could live a quiet life - and where no-one would get too excited if she screwed the farm animals - once again proving that bouncing back from terrible trauma was mostly a matter of experience. Apparently, after the life Tiffany had lived, the horrors of Hell really just qualified as 'more of the same'.

Now, however, it was finally time for action. A large ritual space had been hastily erected under the Grand Dome - or as hastily as a number of hideously carved obsidian altars could be arranged, anyway. Low-ranking cultists from secret, underground chapters based in surrounding lands had flowed in, gradually filling the vast corridors and chambers of the dark temple - anyone who could leave their home for a few days without rousing suspicion was there, eager to earn brownie-points with their Dark Masters and maybe get their freak on while they were at it. Large quantities of potent aphrodisiac had been brewed by the cult's alchemists, ready to redouble the lust and pleasure of the participants. All was in readiness.

Acolytes - and those few members of the Inner Circle who had elected to join the festivities - were already gathering under the dome when Anitra strode in, flanked by 'Nitemare' and Direza. Most of them were gathering near the food tables that had been set up outside the main ritual area - laden with sugared fruits, cold cuts of meat, watered-down wine, and other things that would provide the participants with the fuel to keep going for hours, without lying heavy in their stomachs. Everyone was chatting nervously and trying not to make too much eye contact. They were all naked under their robes, and even for those of them who had participated in such rituals before, the inherent awkwardness of the pre-orgy meet-and-greet was hard to overcome.

The trio's appearance provided a clearly welcome distraction as they strode towards the three altars that had been set up as centerpieces of the orgy. The left one was Direza's, and as she touched it, examining the hideous carvings on its side with a critical eye, a gaggle of cultists nervously approached her. They were her 'partners' for the ritual - a handful of young men and women who, according to the Lucifex's extensive files, had displayed strong masochistic tendencies. His files seemed fairly accurate, based on how _excited_they all looked - clearly happy to be partnered with a drow.

Direza's haughty smile and arrogant pose did not betray one millimeter of her distaste for once again having to play into her people's dark reputation. Really, Anitra thought - she and Blake would had to come up with something very nice to do for their 'servants' once they finally made it back to the Utopia. Both of them were having a rather unpleasant time playing their designated roles.

Chabat arrived fashionably late, moving through the crowd - which respectfully gave way for her but exchanging occasional meaningful gazes behind her back - and made a beeline for the altar that 'Nitemare' was already casually leaning towards. There was nothing false about the haughtiness on her face - the gaze she sent crawling around the room dared any of the acolytes to make any untoward comment about her participation. Certainly, she didn't look like a woman who'd spent the previous night gulping down hot, horse piss.

The dome's ceiling opened with a rumble as Blake made his suitably-dramatic entrance. Anitra felt her heart skip a beat and her pussy drool expectantly as she finally beheld her beloved in the flesh again. She was as naked as the rest of the orgy's participants under her borrowed cult robes - though she'd brought her gear along, rolled up in an innocent-seeming package and currently resting out of sight behind her designated altar - and it was all she could do to restrain herself from just tearing the flimsy fabric apart and starting the party prematurely. A wave of nervousness swept through the room as Blake settled down like a vast shadow over the central altar, despite the acolytes all having been told what to expect.

A gong sounded, and a number of servants moved through the crowd carrying large bottles of a fizzing, pink draught. Everyone had a mouthful - that was all it really took. Anitra, too, took her sip, just for the sake of appearances - her draconic constitution would prevent it from having any particularly significant effect on her, and even that minimal impact would quickly burn out. Direza only_pretended_ to drink - she needed to keep a clear head in order to maintain appearances, and certainly couldn't afford to revert to her actual sexual preferences. Melora, of course, didn't even get the offer - being a demon, and all.

It didn't take many minutes for the effects to become apparent. The crowd of acolytes - somewhere between one and two hundred of them - started to get rather red in the face, and where before everyone seemed to have been trying to avoid looking at each other, now heavy-lidded gazes seemed to be assessing the curves and muscles that hid under the loose, red robes. At the far side of the ritual area, a trio of high ranking cult members (still clear-headed and most likely fully dressed under their robes) were standing in a triangle around a gate-like construct consisting of two carved obsidian pillars with a natural looking lump of volcanic basalt on top, and when they began to chant in a harsh, guttural, arcane language, the ritual got started.

Despite the growing fuzziness of the acolyte's minds, Chabat drew quite a lot of eyes as she shrugged out of her robes and climbed onto Melora's altar. She returned the gazes with a triumphant, if slightly drunk-looking smile and a noticeable blush creeping down her neck and across her modest tits. Most likely, she still imagined that she was drawing looks due to her growing, demonic features... as opposed to her hideously ruined asshole, which was pretty visible as she bent over on her hands and knees, inviting 'Nitemare' to mount her. A few gasps and mumbles could be heard as she did so, showcasing how Chabat's ruined rear orifice could accommodate her entire tool, right to the base, and making it perfectly clear what had caused that damage in the first place.

Anitra idly wondered what the acolytes - who did not, after all, know about Chabat's demon essence delusions - were thinking. What would their reasoned explanation for the situation be? But, ah, clearly fewer and fewer of them were thinking much at all, and soon, she'd join them in mindless sensuality. Around the ritual space, more and more red robes were hitting the ground, exposing naked bodies and clear signs of arousal. Cocks were hard as steel, vibrating slightly as they pointed towards the ceiling, while the women exposed fully erect nipples and wet stains on their inner thighs. Eager hands sought pliable bodies, pulling couples together in passionate embraces as those cocks found pussies, lips, and occasionally asses (not all of them belonging to women). Moans and heavy breathing filled the room and Anitra, kneeling on her designated altar, wagged her rear end invitingly at Blake.

She'd lubed up beforehand - not with healing salve, obviously, but with a sensible, reliable, purpose-made sexual lubricant, derived from a formula found - where else? - in the Library of the Perverse. Melora had been carrying a tub of it in her pack, as she used to - for all that saliva was the little group's lubricant of choice, sometimes it just wasn't practical. Before heading off to the ritual, Direza had helped Anitra apply it thoroughly - as in, she'd been elbow-deep in her dear mistress' ass, taking care to get a nice, even coating as deeply as she could reach. Normally, she preferred to lovingly apply a layer of saliva to her beloved's cock, but there were appearances to preserve in this case, so concessions had to be made. A fair bit of it had been left caked around her sphincter, barely visible in the flickering light of the many braziers that lit the windowless dome - a clear, gooey slime that was making its way ever-so-slowly towards the wet, hungry slit beneath.

Anitra was panting eagerly as Blake covered her body with his own, scaly bulk. She'd already been hungry for his cock all those weeks ago, when her afternoon plans had been so rudely interrupted by one particularly fanatical demon cultist. Gazing over her shoulder, she could tell from the fire in his eyes and the raging erection emerging from his loins that he needed her just as badly as she needed him. The fact that their long-awaited reunion was taking place on a dark altar, surrounded by a sea of amorously entangled cultists, did not concern either one of them in the least. Right then, right there, the world contained only the two of them - and their burning desires.

The breath caught in her throat as his conical cockhead touched her well lubed anus and started to push into it, stretching her sphincter ever-so-slowly. A part of her wanted to shout to him to just get it over with, flex his massive hips and fully impale her in one bone-shaking movement - she could certainly take it! But on another level, she understood and appreciated his restraint. After so long, they both needed to savor every moment of this. Savor the way her body adjusted to his size, accommodating him with only token protests - that familiar pain of stretching that had become an old, beloved friend to her. A reminder that they were a matched set, perfect for one another. Only together were they truly whole.

She had her first orgasm before he was halfway inside her, so fiercely did the passion and desire boiled within her. Then another when he finally bottomed out, and she could feel his flat, scaly loins squeezing against her curvaceous ass. She could feel him so deep inside her, his cockhead resting against her lungs, close to her heart in every sense of the word. Nobody else could fill her the way he did - the true extent of her body's inhuman flexibility only revealed itself in his presence. Indeed, it felt less like being filled, and more like being wrapped around him...

He waited for the second orgasm to peter into afterglow. Then, he started fucking her for real. There was no more holding back, no more restraint. His mighty hips pistoned back and forth with such force, it was a wonder that the solid stone altar beneath her didn't crack under the repeated impacts. The raw power of a mighty dragon poured into her ass, shaking her whole body, making her arms buckle under her. Her heavy tits broke her fall as she collapsed forwards onto the altar, catching her golden nipple-rings between unyielding stone and subtle flesh. She rested there with her heated cheek against the cold stone, eyes wide as her beloved rutted her like a rabid beast.

There was no counting the orgasms now, no measuring the pleasure that flowed through her, liberally mixed with the delicious pain that this violent pounding brought with it. It vibrated through her whole body, consuming her mind, leaving nothing behind but moans and shudders. The smell of the surrounding orgy continued to filter into her nose - the sharp scent of sweaty bodies and free-flowing sexual juices - even as her unfocused eyes failed to see it. She was trapped in a dimension of pure sensation, her body reduced to a pliable fuckhole for a being many times bigger and stronger than her - and she would have happily spent the rest of eternity there.

But, while the pleasure continued, the mindlessness soon came to an end - after all, poor Blake had been deprived of companionship for nearly a week, now, so he was quicker on the trigger than usual. His thrusts became jerky, and then stopped altogether for a few seconds as he groaned above her, pouring his thick, hot cum into her rectum. As soon as the main load had been deposited, before the final spurts had even stilled, he was moving again - now producing some deliciously slimy noises as he pounded her cum packed ass - but meanwhile her body had started to absorb and metabolize that thick, creamy cum, and the Quickening rolled over her.

There were no fancy powers of abilities in a Draconic Quickening - but the strength and clarity it brought with it were far greater in turn. She knew that she could easily push herself back up to her hands and knees now, her reinforced arms more than capable of handling the impact of Blake's resumed pace. She didn't feel like it, though - it was better this way, feeling the impulse of his thrusts travel down through her whole body, flattening her tits against the altar, sending little bursts of delicious pain out from where her nipple-rings were trapped. But alas, she could not go back to that place of blind sensation - her mind was whirring too quickly, too efficiently, now. Even as the pleasure continued to flow through her, she was now able to maintain higher brain functions, observing and considering her surroundings.

The way her head had fallen when she collapsed had made her eyes look in the direction of Direza's altar. The drow priestess was sitting astride a young man, who was clinging desperately to the edges of the obsidian surface, his face twisted into an expression of transcendental ecstasy... or perhaps agony - more likely both. One of her arms was reaching down behind her, the hand at the end likely crushing the man's balls in a vise-like grip while she rode him. The other arm was wielding a cruel, nine-tailed whip, lashing this way and that as she casually lashed the other devotees who clustered, naked and clearly aroused, around the altar. Even occupied as she was, she struck with unerring precision - caressing breasts, asses, and groins. Women and men alike jumped and gasped as the cruel tool ran its tails up across balls, shaft and head, labia, mons and clit... and all of them stood with their legs eagerly spread, inviting its attention.

Of course, this was just a single island in the sea of naked, undulating bodies. Fueled by the aphrodisiac draught and religious fervor, the acolytes were rutting together with no thought for anything but the pleasure. From teenagers to late middle-agers - they hadn't called in any acolyte liable to sour the affair with a sudden heart attack - from pretty to ugly, from muscular to flabby... everybody was getting it on, and there were so many orgasmic shrieks and groans that no single one could be distinguished - it all just flowed together into a general din.

And on the far side of the arena-like ritual space a dull, red glow could be seen in the middle of the obsidian gate, growing steadily between the outstretched hands of the three chanting cultists. Frankly, it somewhat surprised Anitra that her own overwhelming passion and pleasure hadn't punched a hole clear through to Hell all by itself, but based on what she'd heard from the Lucifex, this still qualified as exceptional performance. Thanks to the drug enhancing the sensations and pleasures of all the participants and her own extra-powerful feelings, the ritual was proceeding both faster and smoother than anything his predecessors had managed to accomplish. The lust, desire, passion and pleasure that filled the room was flowing through the portal, reaching down towards the nether planes like a worm on a hook and drawing the attention of a demon that was particularly attuned to those sensations...

It still took over an hour, though - maybe close to an hour and a half. Not a lot of time by most reckonings, but a dangerous amount of time to be doing strenuous physical activity in an increasingly overheated and overcrowded room. At least a dozen or so of the acolytes had passed out - from dehydration, heat exhaustion, or even just lack of air if they had the misfortune of winding up somewhere near the bottom of a pile of erotically-gyrating cultists. Grimacing servants pulled their sweaty, fluid stained bodies from the orgy and provided rudimentary care - cold water and fanned air, mostly. The high-ranking trio around the gate was growing increasingly hoarse as they continued their chanting. Their replacements hovered nearby, ready to take over when the first set finally couldn't continue anymore - always a touchy operation - but it did not seem like it would come to that.

The blotch of red light had expanded, reaching out to touch the obsidian pillars and the basalt crossbeam, seemingly stabilizing in the process. By now, it resembled a somewhat color-shifted version of the portal that had brought her home from the nether planes a short week ago. And there seemed to be a shape moving behind it - a big one. Anitra idly watched it while she shuddered her way through yet another orgasm. Blake had continued tirelessly through the entire time period, although the energy of his thrusts had diminished somewhat. By now, even her highly experienced ass was feeling a bit worn-out and sore, and enough cumloads had flowed into her that she was sporting a swollen belly... well, beyond the more long-term swelling of her steadily-advancing pregnancy, anyway.

Her Quickening was running full tilt, but it somehow felt like she wasn't using up the reservoir as quickly as she'd used to. Maybe the weeks spent in Hell, requiring a constant state of Quickening to even breathe, had taught her body how to use the available resources more efficiently...

Shaking off those idle musings, she took a deep breath and focused through the rolling waves of orgasmic pleasure. Time to wrap it up, love!_She told Blake telepathically. The demon was getting very close to pushing through the portal, and once it did, things could potentially get quite hairy _really quickly. Best not to be intimately entangled at that point - and, for that matter, being a bit more clear-headed wouldn't hurt either.

Grunting, Blake signaled his agreement and, after a couple more thrusts, he stopped and pulled back with a sigh, finally letting his thick, still hard, cock emerge from her ass. Despite nearly an hour and a half of non-stop ass fucking, the black dragon seemingly hadn't managed to burn off all the pent-up sexual energy from his weeks of near celibacy. While Melora had helped him ease the pressure a few times before they arrived at the Temple, he'd ultimately been too distracted by Anitra's unknown fate to partake wholeheartedly - and for the past week, there'd obviously been no such opportunities.

As Blake sat back, still looming over the dark altar, Anitra straightened up and worked out a few kinks in her muscles, before spinning around with a hungry look, licking her lips. Blake grinned down at her. It wouldn't do to be stuck together at a vital time, but the demon wasn't there yet, and there was no reason not to indulge in a bit of oral pleasure while they waited. Maintaining eye contact, she leaned forwards to kiss the tip of his cock, nostrils flaring as she took in the scents and flavors that he had mined from the deepest reaches of her ass.

She'd always enjoyed going ass-to-mouth on some level, but it had used to be mainly because she knew it was a turn-on for Blake - and there was very little she wouldn't do simply to cater to his sexual whims. However, about a year ago, near the end of the adventure that had taken them to the Dragon Utopia, that had changed somewhat - when she had battled Sharanaman and Legion, and had her body infused with negative energy, courtesy of a twisted, tentacled beast from beyond the veil. The resultant 'Dark Quickening' had turned her into an insane, superpowered berserker, bent on nothing but death and destruction... until Blake had subdued her and flushed her system by forcing a proper, Draconic Quickening on her.

In the aftermath, she'd spent something like eight hours trapped under his body as he slept off his post-battle fatigue, his cock still lodged deep in her ass. When he finally woke up and rose so that she might slip out from under him, the first thing she'd done was to lick his cock clean. It was the only way she could think of to show him her devotion and gratitude - for during those events, it had also become clear that Blake truly loved her just as much as she loved him. Enough that he would willingly risk his own life in a desperate bid to save her, even as she mindlessly attacked him.

Ever since then, the act had been a reaffirmation. Feeling the heat of her own insides on her tongue, breathing in the dank smells carried into the air from deep inside her, tasting the rank ass-slime that was mixed in with the inevitable layer of cum... It was a reminder of that day, and a joyous gesture of devotion and love. After the long separation and her travails in Hell, she relished it more than ever - just as she relished the expression of enduring arousal on her beloved's face as she went about her task with gusto, noisily licking, sucking and kissing every inch of his reeking cock.

Anitra had finished a thorough tongue-cleaning and was halfway towards sucking a fresh load of dragon-cum out of the hard, throbbing tool, when it finally happened. A sound like a large piece of fabric being violently torn apart rang through the steady noise-level maintained by the ever-present moans and orgasmic screams, so she quickly turned to put eyes on the portal. The three cultists who had surrounded it were falling back, clearly exhausted, as their labor finally bore fruit. The red light that had filled the doorway had parted, revealing a core of withering darkness and, from inside, two large, clawed hands were emerging, gripping the edges and tearing the rift larger. Bit by bit, the towering monstrosity emerged into the ritual space - the demosphinx had arrived.

Its existence was not inherently surprising to the DragonRider. After all, she had recently learned that the demons that dwelt in the pits of the nether planes were patterned after the beings that lived in the world above. The parts were sometimes mixed up a fair bit, but recognizable traits could usually be spotted. Naturally, many of them resembled the common, widespread species - elves, humans, orcs, dwarves - at least in the rough outlines. But there were also some that took their shape from more rare and exotic creatures - like Marilith, the snake-tailed demoness she'd met during her recent sojourn in Hell, who bore a more-than-passing resemblance to the secretive nagas.... just with more arms.

Well, by the same token, this creature resembled a sphinx - one of those powerful, enigmatic monsters that sometimes emerged from the deep deserts or the desolate peaks, giving anyone who faced them a choice between a contest of strength and a contest of riddles. They were said to be quite fearsome in both areas, too. She'd never met one herself, but she'd heard stories and the resemblance was certainly there. The body of a giant lion with a human head... and, in this case, a pretty human-looking pair of tits.

The head belonged to a gorgeous (if rather oversized) woman, and the equally oversized tits that dangled beneath it were just as shapely, standing out all the more for being an island of smooth, reddish skin amid the black fur of the demonic lion-body. Other than that, the main difference from the sphinxes she'd heard about was the addition of a pair of bat-like wings, currently folded tightly against her furry flanks - giving her a vaguely griffon-like aspect. Rings of Hellforged steel pierced each of her nipples, and a string of large, black pearls hung between them. Several more chains of beads hung around her neck - lines of ruby-like jewels that glowed with infernal light, bloodstones whose dark patterns seemed to be constantly shifting, and more black pearls.

Her expression was eager, hungry - a long, forked tongue was caressing her shapely lips as she looked around the circular ritual space, taking in the ongoing orgy. The acolytes were still too caught up in the aphrodisiac drug and their own pleasures to pay her any mind - the only people within the circle who were looking at the new arrival at all were Anitra, Blake, Direza and Melora - although the last two carefully avoided making any show of it, continuing to participate in the orgy as if they were fully caught up in the lustful frenzy. Meanwhile, the Lucifex and his most loyal supporters were standing safely away from the circle, watching intently... waiting to see what would happen next.

The demosphinx stepped carefully forwards, planting her paws in the empty spaces between the sexually entangled acolytes. "Such a feast..." she moaned, her voice thick and husky. "So much pleasure, so much lust, spiced with just the right amount of pain..." Blake, standing at his full size, looming over the entire ritual space, bared his teeth at her and drew her attention with a rumbled reply. "I'm glad to hear you're enjoying the meal we've laid out for you... but do keep in mind, there's no such thing as a 'free lunch'." It had been agreed, ahead of time, that Blake would attempt to engage the demosphinx first. Demons respected_power_ more than anything else, and he had it in spades. Cult priests were standing by outside the circle, watchful and nervous, ready to bind the beast with their magic if she should prove unwilling to negotiate - or, at least, ready to try.

The demonic beast looked him up and down, eyes lingering on his groin where his cock - still at half-mast - stood like a bright red beacon against the background of his jet black scales. Licking her lips suggestively, she leered at him. "Well, now... I seem to have left my purse at home... perhaps I could repay you in some _other_way..." He shook his head with a sigh, a sardonic grin creasing his handsome, reptilian features. Hardly unsurprising behavior from a demon that enjoyed such close affinity with pleasure and lust. "A tempting offer, hot stuff... but I'm afraid I had something a little different in mind. I hear that your kind have great skill when it comes to manipulating the infernal energy of the nether planes?"

She snorted and rolled her eyes. "Oh, way to ruin the atmosphere, big boy... you wanna talk business in the middle of my meal, huh?" Her paws shifted on the ground a bit, sending a couple of erotically entangled cultists rolling sideways. They barely seemed to notice - the woman who had previously been on the bottom just lifted her chest in order to better ride the man who had suddenly wound up beneath her. The demosphinx peered briefly at them, sniffing the air and taking in the concentrated sweat and cum smell of the hour-long orgy. With a sigh, she shook her fur. "Fine, fine. Let's call it a business-lunch, then. Yes, I'm quite good at handling infernal energy. It's easy! Frankly, I don't understand why me and my kin are the only ones who can do it that well - it's so simple when you just... look at it right."

Despite her casually-dismissive shrug, Blake eagerly leaned in, craning his serpentine neck. "Excellent. So, could you, theoretically, drain the infernal energy out of someone who'd wound up... absorbing a fair amount of it?" The demosphinx lifted an eyebrow, then grinned, showing rows of pearly-white, razor-sharp fangs. "I could, perhaps... but something like that would cost you a damn sight more than just a meal, however... rich." And there it was - you could always count on a demon to bargain, and bargain hard. Thanks to Anitra's recent experiences, Blake knew a lot about what demons might want, and indeed he had much he could offer. But rather than open with any of the things he'd considered, he ran a thoughtful eye over the demonic monster before him, and sniffed the air, carefully sorting and filtering the mixed scent that filled the air.

Then, an equally fang-filled grin crept across his own face. "Ah, well, wouldn't you know... I seem to have left my golden hoard at home. Perhaps we could come up with some alternate mode of payment..." The demosphinx did a double-take, and then laughed out loud. "Are you quite serious, dragon? That is your opening offer?" But Blake just nodded, confidently raising his eyebrow. "Sure I'm serious. Come, now... when was the last time you had a really good lay, hmm? I've heard that male demons aren't the most considerate lovers... and there aren't that many of them that could match you for size, so you don't have the best dating pool down there, either."

The demoness looked him over once again, more thoughtfully this time. Her leonine body was easily three meters tall at the shoulder - a towering monstrosity by most reckonings, but Blake matched her for sheer size, even if his long neck and tail gave him a more sleekly predatory aspect. "Confident in your skills, then?" She asked throatily, her grin gradually shifting from 'mocking' to 'hungry'. "You could say that..." he smoothly replied. "You could also say that I have extensive experience in the field, and a long string of satisfied customers. Indeed, I have rarely received any complaints, even from those who were, at first, reluctant..."

Anitra grinned at the truth of this statement, her eyes straying briefly to Melora, who rather exemplified the last part of it. Blake had taken her by force and threat when they had first met, but she'd become so enamored with him in the process that she'd basically walked the width and breadth of the world just to reunite with him. And then there was that slave girl from their trip to Mirage City... good times. Her mind, then, briefly alighted with the image of a young golden dragon, broken in body and spirit, splayed on the ground of a remote island, hatred burning in eyes left vague and unfocused by pain and humiliation. She shied away from the memory. It had seemed arousing at the time, but with her new taste for heroics, not so much. She'd gone out of her way, recently, to try and undo some of the damage she and Blake had wrought during their single-minded hunt for the Dragon Utopia, but how would you even begin with something like that?

She very deliberately packed the thought away, focusing on the ongoing banter. It was clear that both of them were enjoying it immensely, even as it turned steadily more suggestive. An understanding was eventually reached, and the demosphinx shook her head with a sigh. "Fine, then, damn those bedroom eyes of yours... I must be going crazy to even consider such a bargain, but I suppose sanity gets rather boring after a while anyway. If you can truly satisfy me, I'll do as you requested."

Blake nodded eagerly, a mischievous smile on his scaly lips. "Fair as fair gets, I'd say! But just to be clear - the bargain stands unless you are left physically unsatisfied by my performance. Your expert critique of my techniques, while certainly welcome for the purpose of continued growth, will not have any bearing on the result. Acceptable?" This was, of course, an important detail - demons were demons, for all that some of them had turned out to be fairly decent people too. Wouldn't do to leave her such a simple 'out' as just claiming that, dozens of orgasms aside, she wasn't _really_satisfied...

The demosphinx certainly didn't bother to pretend any insult from this move, and shrugged it off with a shake of her wings. "Acceptable. Now stop wasting time and mount me already - I want to see if your cock can live up to your mouth's claims!" Anitra suppressed a giggle. The demosphinx certainly had an admirably forthright manner - she could see herself growing to like the towering demon beast if she got the chance. Still, she felt a dark and hateful twinge as she watched Blake do as he was told, a lustful grin on his face - not out of jealousy, per se, but simply out of the immediate desire to be in the demosphinx's place.

That was all instinct and emotion, however - logically, she could hardly fault Blake for having some fun without her at this point. Both during her stay in the nether planes and over the course of the past week, she'd been having a lot more sex than him. Like... a LOT. That urgent desire and seemingly bottomless virility he'd been pouring into her, earlier in the ritual, hadn't just randomly manifested - he was badly backed up, unleashing more than a month of pent-up sexuality. Enough to leave her satisfied - physically, if not mentally - and still have all the mojo he needed in order to impress a lust-driven demoness. Oh yes, she had no doubt he'd handle it... but what was she to do with herself in the meantime?

She looked around. The orgy was still going on, filling the air with moans and the smell of sweaty, visceral sex. Her two friends were still in character, too. Direza was standing on her altar at the moment, a slim young thing kneeling between her legs, head buried deep enough in her ash-gray muff that he or she would be having trouble breathing - the cultist was too pale and skinny for Anitra to easily tell whether it was a boy or a girl from behind. One of the drow priestess' legs were draped over the youth's shoulder, her stiletto-heeled foot grinding into the crotch of a panting girl lying spread-eagled before her, arms and legs held firmly by the rest of the masochistic group attending to her. They were rewarded with an occasional swat from the nine-tailed whip Direza still wielded with both strength and precision, but the feverish look in their eyes made it clear that they longed to take the place of either of the two lucky souls on the altar. Craning her neck, Anitra felt a shudder of desire go there herself - unless she was mistaken, Direza was carefully pushing the long, thin heel of her dominatrix-boot up the squirming girl's sensitive urethra.

She quickly turned her head before she started getting any dangerous ideas about joining in - that would mess up her 'image', and make it even harder for Direza to stay in character. Instead, she glanced over at the altar that held the cult priestess Chabat and 'Nitemare'. They'd started out both kneeling on top of it, doing the classic 'doggystyle' - but by now, the action had moved a step back and down, with Chabat bent over the end of the altar, trapped between the unyielding stone and the muscular weight of the 'demonic' equine pounding her from behind. Judging by the slimy, sloshing sounds they were producing, Melora had already emptied one load in the cultist's ruined ass, and was now working her way steadily towards a second - aided, no doubt, by the fact that her partner was actually _enjoying_it for once, thanks to the aphrodisiac potion she'd taken. Also probably helping was the random, equally drug dazed cultist who'd positioned himself beneath the pair and was currently hungrily eating out Chabat's pussy, still bruised from Melora's rough handling a couple of days earlier - entirely ignoring the heavy pair of horse-balls that were regularly bounding off the back of his head.

She tore her eyes away from this too. If that cultist hadn't been there,she could have taken that position, just to have something to do. Indeed, the sight had just given her an urge to bury her face underneath Melora's swatting tail to provide the rutting 'Nitemare' with similar stimulation - she hadn't told the horsegirl, but the sadistic 'demonic nightmare' persona she'd taken on for this infiltration was really hot. Anitra went both ways when it came to submission and domination, and she'd love to submit to 'Nitemare's tender treatment... but the knowledge that it was all just an act put on by the sweet, submissive Melora, and not one the masochistic mare enjoyed either_,_ rendered that entire possibility moot.

Well, it was not as if there was a shortage of sexual partners around her. Some of the amorously entangled cultists that surrounded her position were actually pretty attractive, and it was unlikely that anyone would look askance at her for just jumping into the general scrum. If anything, her continued inaction was more likely to seem suspicious, considering that she had taken the aphrodisiac draught along with everybody else. She had just about made up her mind to do just that, and started scanning the pile of pale, sweaty, undulating flesh for a suitably well-equipped man to aim for when a breathless voice resounded in her mind. Not that I can't handle this just fine all by myself or anything, but how about lending a hand and/or tongue, my dear? We _ are _ a team, after all, and I doubt this delightful demoness is in any condition to complain about interference...

Ah, now THERE was a much better option! Indeed, that would probably have been her first thought, if that flash of not-quite-jealousy hadn't pushed her to look elsewhere as quickly as possible. She now allowed her eyes and attention to swing back to their original target - Blake and the demosphinx, the supersized, rutting centerpiece to the orgy! Sure enough, the towering demon didn't seem likely to make any objections - her eyes, each nearly the size of Anitra's entire head, were half rolled back, staring blindly towards the domed basalt ceiling, while her tongue lolled dog-like from her fang-lined mouth. Anitra couldn't blame her. No doubt, she'd be in a similar condition. Blake was pulling out all the stops, as well he should with so much at stake - he was dominating the powerful demon beast, gripping her shoulders with powerful claws, capturing her wings between their bodies, and driving his hips into her with insistent power and hungry urgency.

In spite of everything, he was also clearly enjoying himself. Maybe it was just because, for once, he didn't need to hold _anything_back, nor worry about harming his partner in any way. With human sized partners like Anitra, well, it simply wasn't physically possible for him to go all-out. He didn't hold back when he fucked her, she knew that - and knew that her DragonRider body was perfectly able to handle this. But the huge difference between their sizes simply wouldn't allow him to pound her the way he could pound a similarly-sized partner. Meanwhile, with his coterie of eager dragonettes back in the Utopia, he always had to be a bit careful, particularly when it came to his claws. They were sharp enough to tear through the normally-invulnerable scales of other dragons, after all.

But this huge demon... she could handle everything he threw at her. His claws were digging into her furry shoulders, drawing small amounts of black blood, near-invisible against the similarly-colored fur. She clearly didn't mind, and why should she? Unless he tore out her heart and devoured her soul, he literally COULDN'T hurt her in any real way. And so, he could pour his lust and strength into her without reservation, moving his entire body in sinuous patterns as he pounded her with the kind of power that would have reduced mere mortal bones to dust. The slapping sounds of their colliding genitals were clearly audible even over the general cacophony of moans, pants and orgasmic screams, like the steady heartbeat of the orgy itself.

Feeling her pussy ooze plenty of thick, sticky juices without any help from the aphrodisiac that was powering the rest of the participants, she eagerly leaped towards this magnificent display, searching for any way to interject herself. She could see one or two places where she'd fit... or, more specifically, two large, bouncing places. The demosphinx was stacked to say the least - it was easily the biggest pair of tits Anitra had ever seen, and even in relation to the giant head above them, they were huge... suggesting that the demosphinx actually did have a tremendous rack, even by the standards of her own kind. At least it seemed unlikely that they got much bigger - if they did, they'd have to start getting in the way, big time!

Ducking under the string of beads that connected the nipples, Anitra threw herself into the demosphinx's cleavage with aplomb and started massaging and kneading the two huge, soft, smooth orbs. She used her whole body, hands and elbows, feet and knees, trying to simply create enough stimulation that it'd make some kind of real difference to the already pleasure-soaked demosphinx. Thrusting her rear back, she could also pull on the dangling string of bloodstones behind her, pulling forcefully on the nipples in the process. Her position meant that she could not merely hear, but also feel it as the creature's moans and groans grew deeper and throatier, breath quickening... and then, a full-bodied shudder. The ancient and powerful demosphinx had just cum, with a drawn-out, half-strangled moan. Blake was still going, though, not even slowing down - his lust might still be at high tide, but his balls had to be struggling to keep up after all the rounds the two of them had gone through before the demosphinx even deigned to join the party. It gave him greater staying power than he could usually boast, and the demosphinx was harvesting the fruits of that.

Darting back out from under the demosphinx's nipple-chain, she then moved a bit further to the side and refocused her attention on a single breast, trying her best to recreate the sensation of a single, gigantic hand mauling the subtle, bouncy thing. Well, perhaps not_quite_ like that - after all, hands generally didn't have a tiny mouth in the middle that could focus its attentions on the most sensitive bit of the tit... and fortunately, the ring that pierced the nipple was large enough that she could fit her lower jaw entirely into it.

The nipple that rose from the dinner-plate-sized areola was literally the size of her fist, and at least as hard - she nearly had to unhinge her jaw to take it all in (not that this was a problem for her), sucking roughly on it. After a moment, she reminded herself that despite the obvious similarities, she was not sucking on the head of a particularly short and thick cock - the nipple was covered in thick, leathery skin, making it significantly hardier. With her jaws spread so far, she didn't have a lot of leverage, but she could still grind her teeth into the huge nipple with a fair bit of force, feeling firm flesh and hard steel push against each other inside the ring-pierced lump of sensitive tissue - and hear the demosphinx's breath catch in her throat in response.

Well, perhaps it wasn't just because of her own efforts. A minute later, the demosphinx lifted her huge head to make an entirely unrestrained half-moan/half-scream of orgasmic pleasure, the movement neatly lifting Anitra from the ground, suddenly leaving her dangling from the nipple-chain with her full weight. Looking up past the sea of swaying, light-red flesh, she could see Blake place his head next to the demosphinx's remarkably human-like ear, and even hear his hoarse whisper. "Enjoying that infusion of thick, strong dragon-cum, hmm? Well, I'm nowhere near done... I want to hear you_really_ scream in pleasure. So lift that pretty little tail of yours - I'm going to ream out your ass next."

Anitra and the demosphinx shuddered virtually in unison. This, Anitra knew, was Blake's greatest asset. Not the huge cock or the powerful body, not the tremendous virility or near-bottomless stamina... but that incredibly dominant demeanor, that absolute confidence that went beyond mere cockiness and instead demonstrated an absolute, unshakable faith in his own sexual power. There were never any questions or requests - he didn't so much 'expect' as _know_that anyone who'd tasted his skills would naturally submit to his whims. Confidence is sexy, as the saying goes - and absolute confidence was thus an absolute aphrodisiac, one that cared nothing for a DragonRider's superpowered metabolism or a demon's immunity to drugs and poisons.

Sure enough, as Blake stepped back and pulled out, leaving the demosphinx with a bit of room to move in without quite letting go of her leonine body, she moved as he'd commanded. From where she was dangling, Anitra could not see the tufty black lion-tail lift and curl along the demosphinx's spine, trembling in excitement as it exposed the tiny, puckered hole beneath it to Blake thick, hard, well-lubricated cock - but she could vividly imagine it. And she didn't need to imagine the way the demosphinx bent her forelegs, letting her heaving breasts be flattened against the basalt floor by their own ponderous weight, while pushing her rear end up and back in mute invitation - after all, it was thanks to this that she was able to get her feet back on the ground!

Staggering a few steps back, trying to regain her balance after the sudden drop, she considered her next move. The breasts were effectively out of her reach now, but another, even better target had opened up! Even so, she had to pause briefly to admire the look of perverted ecstasy that was sculpted before her on such a scale - the demosphinx's huge face truly looked just like that of a human woman, save for the reddish skin and a mouthful of teeth that looked somewhat pointier than normal. No horns, no pointy ears - even the eyes were only _subtly_inhuman, sporting fiery-orange irises that would have been fairly easy to mistake for a perfectly natural amber had they been human-sized. Based on Anitra's hard-earned knowledge about demonic hierarchies, that probably meant that this demosphinx was a powerful one, near Devil-status in terms of power, if she was not in fact already there.

All of that, however, was merely a passing thought as she quickly stepped around the huge, black-furred body, and then darted under the upraised hips to a small, triangular space beneath the two oversized lovers. It smelled fiercely of sweat and sex down there, with overtones of draconic musk (her favorite scent) and... brimstone? Well, the demosphinx WAS a demon, after all. Looking ahead, she could see a pair of powerful lion-legs shake as Blake carried out his promise, pushing his cock - lubricated by demonic pussy-juice and fresh dragon cum - through a resisting sphincter. More importantly, she could also see the bottom of the demosphinx's dripping, still gaping pussy.

Anitra quickly moved forwards to get a better look. The shape certainly wasn't human - she hadn't seen anything quite like it before, but the heavy folds and sheer scale of it gave it a definite, bestial aspect. At the bottom, the clit could be seen - huge and thick like the head of an ordinary, human cock, poking out from beneath a hefty hood, lured from hiding by the stimulating pleasure Blake had just finished pouring into its home. The flickering light of the portal that the demosphinx had so recently appeared through shone neatly between Blake's legs and illuminated the interior of the gaping orifice above - showing the pulsating, reddish-pink walls, dripping with lubricant and host to a wide river of delicious dragon cum that was steadily leaking out of the barren womb that no doubt hid somewhere in the back.

Even as Blake reached full penetration above her, sheathing his thick cock to the root in the demosphinx's overstuffed asshole, she attacked this freshly abandoned orifice with aplomb. She drank hungrily from the river, and felt her ongoing Quickening flare and reinforce. It had been going on long enough that her swollen belly had mostly flattened itself again, but if she continued to drink like this, that would soon change.

Seeking to distract herself from the feast, she then moved a bit lower and attacked the still-erect clit. She sucked forcefully on it, wrapping her lips tightly around the base, where the fleshy folds normally enfolded and protected the sensitive organ. She ran her tongue over and around it, caressing every square inch. She let her teeth caress the surface, grinding them back and forth over it, and finally started to delicately bite on it - all while Blake pounded the demosphinx's tight ass with every bit as much force and violence as when he'd assaulted her pussy earlier.

Blake had set out to make the demosphinx scream in pleasure, and he certainly reached his goal. The demosphinx screamed, cried, and sobbed as repeated orgasms wracked her demonic body, pleasure - 'spiced with just the right amount of pain', no doubt - radiating out from her overstimulated rear. Anitra was well familiar with this process - she'd done it to Direza more than once. Enough pleasure, enough orgasms, could be just as overwhelming as the cruelest torture, battering the mind until you felt like you were going insane. But surely, a powerful demon like the demosphinx was made from sterner stuff than that...

Grinning at that thought, she awkwardly reached up her hands and began to add even more stimulation, tickling and caressing the thick, fleshy labia before pushing both of them into the rapidly-pulsating orifice itself and searching around for particularly sensitive spots. She knew from experience that demons had them too, same as most mortal races. Then another thought occurred to her, and she pulled one hand back while simultaneously turning her head sideways, never relinquishing her oral grip of the creature's clit. This enabled her juice-covered fingers to find the demosphinx's urethra, right next to her cheek - and at this scale, she could easily work a finger or two up that tiny hole, providing a sort of stimulation that the towering beast had never felt before.

Some of the gasps and groans that were filtering back around the huge, furry body sounded like they were attempts to form words, reduced to indecipherable babble by the constant waves of pleasure. Anitra had some experience in recognizing that particular situation. What was the mighty demosphinx trying to communicate, she wondered. Pleas for mercy? Attempting to ask them to stop before she was driven insane by the pleasure the two of them were inflicting with their combination attack? Or was she actually trying to ask for more: harder, faster and deeper? She couldn't call either scenario improbable. Not that it changed what she needed to do. Blake was setting the pace, and he, too, would decide when it ended. Meanwhile, her own surging desires mandated one change - she had to seize her manual stimulation of the demosphinx's voluminous pussy in order to put her hands to better use.

She continued to suck, lick and lightly bite the throbbing clit while her hands darted down between her own widely-spread thighs - she was squatting beneath the demosphinx's groin, ensuring that she had equally easy access to both her own eager genitals and the demon's far larger setup. Right now, she urgently needed to dig her fingers into the sensitive tissue of her own cunt. The eroticism of the situation, the noise, the smells, it was all too much. She didn't masturbate very often anymore, but she had excellent all-round fingering skills... which mattered not at all under these circumstances. Literally shaking with desire, she was simply plunging her fingers into the hungry, drooling hole between her legs with all the elegance of a teenage virgin - it hardly made a difference. Her pent-up desires were like a bomb inside her, a barrel of alchemist's fire, just waiting for a stray spark to set it off.

And set it off she did. Everything went white as pleasure flooded her mind. For a couple of minutes, it was all blank. When her cognition returned, she was somewhat surprised to learn that her entire left hand had somehow found its way inside her, along with most of the wrist - her fingers pushing deep and writhing delightfully. Her right hand, meanwhile, was busy rubbing and pinching her buzzing clit. Speaking of clits, her body had sagged somewhat during the orgasmic contortions - or perhaps rather in the immediate aftermath, when her muscles relaxed. She was still sucking forcefully on the demosphinx's clit, but with her current pose, a fair portion of her body-weight had to be pulling on it. This might partially explain the long, shaky, drawn-out groans she could hear from somewhere in front.

Once again, though, she couldn't take sole responsibility. Above her, Blake's bone-shaking thrusts had stilled - which meant that he'd be currently emptying his overworked balls into the depths of the demon's ass. She didn't need to exchange any telepathic cues with him to realize that this meant the session was just about over - she was well familiar with his patterns. So, after reluctantly digging her hand back out of her pussy's tight, wet embrace, she straightened up a bit and abandoned the demosphinx's no-doubt overstimulated clit in order to suck a few more mouthfuls of still-warm cum out of the oozing orifice above it. Nevermind keeping her Quickening stocked - she just never got tired of that delicious, savory flavor, and it always seemed a particular treat to her taste buds when mixed with a bit of sweet, feminine nectar... even if this particular nectar was more smoky and tart than sweet.

She glanced up as Blake, spent, stepped back with a sigh. It was quite a sight, the way the demosphinx's ass clung to his cock as he pulled out, the sphincter muscles spasming visibly with post-orgasmic tremors. The twitching became even more noticeable when the thick rod disappeared entirely, leaving the stretched-out orifice to gape and shudder in its absence. Speaking of shuddering, the demosphinx's hind-legs seemed to be shaking more and more forcefully... Moving with sudden celerity, Anitra rolled out from under the huge demon's hindquarters, and not a moment too soon. The demosphinx collapsed onto the floor with a sigh, panting and gasping as her body relaxed in the afterglow of dozen-plus orgasms.

It was certainly unlikely that she'd be able to claim, with a straight face, that Blake had failed to satisfy her. It also seemed unlikely that she'd be able to string any coherent thoughts together for the next several minutes, though, let alone work any miracles of infernal magic - leaving Anitra with a bit of time to appreciate the thick, cum-and-ass-stained dragon-cock that was dangling wetly before her, slowly softening. It seemed like Blake's tremendous virility was spent, at least for the moment - but oh, it wouldn't do to let that magnificent tool of his retreat into its sheath while it was so messy! It wasn't quite the same as when it was fresh from her _own_ass, of course, but Anitra wasn't about to let that deter her.

It wasn't as if it was actually half as nasty as it looked - and smelled - she philosophized while she licked the huge shaft clean, delighting in the feeling of the sensitive tissue jumping under her gentle touch. The demosphinx was a demon, after all, and by now she knew a lot more about what that actually meant than most demonologists who had spent decades of their lives studying the infernal creatures. The huge, leonine creature had a fully functional digestive system, sure, but she'd probably rarely - if ever - actually USED it. After all, back in Hell, there was no need for food and drink - and such a powerful demon was manifestly difficult to bring into the World-Plane, where it actually would have the option of sustaining itself the regular way.

So there weren't going to be any traces of actual fecal matter clinging to Blake's cock, she thought with ironic detachment. Her inhuman constitution aside, going ass-to-mouth with a demon was actually far more hygienic than doing so with any regular, natural beings. What a strange world... and hey, she still got to feel those pulses of dark, perverted pleasure that the act always brought with it, thanks to the sharp, bitter flavor of the demosphinx's anal secretions underlying the familiar, savory deliciousness of Blake's abundant cum.

The timing worked out remarkably well. Just after she'd finished cleaning Blake's cock and watched it finalize its retreat into his protective sheath with a twinge of regret, the demosphinx pushed herself back to her feet... or, rather, paws, with a groan. "Well, then... I don't suppose there's any point in trying to pretend that you didn't amply live up to your side of the bargain..." the towering demon remarked dryly, her wits having clearly returned in full. Demons really WERE made of stern stuff, Anitra thought as she crept out from under Blake's arched body in order to face the demosphinx by his side - it would've taken her at least twice as long to recover after such a pleasure overload.

The demosphinx's huge, orange eyes followed her movements, and an arm-sized eyebrow quirked. "I won't even complain about you calling in additional help to overwhelm me with numbers... I perceive that the two of you are closely enough connected that you are as much one as two." The fiery glare felt uncomfortably perceptive, now that it was no longer fogged by mind-bending pleasure, and Anitra had to carefully restrain the urge to squirm under it. The demosphinx was sporting a lopsided grin that could, with a bit of optimism, be called friendly - but it was still hard to ignore the fact that the mouth producing it was big enough to swallow her whole, and attached to a demonic, black-furred, bat-winged lion.

Around them, the orgy was winding down fast. Many of the regular cultists had collapsed and been pulled out of the ritual-circle, leaving only a handful of couples, and one or two trios, still moving languidly against one another - the drug-fueled urgency had mostly run its course, but lust still reigned within the circle, amongst those with the sheer stamina to remain active. Direza and Melora were still going strong, too - never mind past experience as adventurers, living as the servants-slash-sextoys of the insatiable Blake & Anitra had gifted them with stupendous stamina, and hard earned knowledge about the importance of pacing yourself. Direza's collection of masochistic toys was looking rather frazzled, though, with a couple of them having outright collapsed against the altar and the rest having a feverish, distant look in their eyes. Chabat, meanwhile, seemed to be pretty far gone herself - probably moving in a sexual trance by now, her normally scheming and ambitious brain having been mostly shut down. At least, that was what Anitra guessed from the way she was currently kneeling between 'Nitemare's' legs, licking her thoroughly messy horsecock clean without any indication of distaste or reluctance.

She was also, in the process, nicely showing off the absolute ruin of her asshole to pretty much the entire room, not that a lot of people had spare attention to admire it. The lengthy, enthusiastic ass fucking she'd just endured had done the impossible and somehow managed to make it look even worse than before. As best Anitra could guess, some of the fragments of the cult priestess' fractured sphincter had to have been cut off from blood-flow entirely by the various surrounding injuries and patches of scar tissue, leaving them to necrotize and blacken, nerves deadening and tissue disintegrating. These hardened bits of flesh hadn't been able to handle the forces poured into the hole over the past couple of hours, and had thus cracked and fallen off entirely - leaving weeping patches of tissue that soon scarred over thanks to the salve the priestess had no doubt applied in advance of the ritual as per usual. The fact that a few pieces still remained - red, puffy and unhealthy-looking through they were - somehow just made the resulting crater look even nastier.

It was enough to make Anitra wince sympathetically as she glanced at it; for all that she had planned the whole thing herself. Cruel and unusual punishment indeed, however richly deserved... well, based on the heroic tales and songs she'd heard when she was younger, she rather doubted that anyone would mistake it for a heroic act. Heroes were supposed to hand a swift and clean death to even the vilest of torturers and evildoers, because they were _better_than that - but quite frankly, that just didn't seem like much fun to Anitra. Maybe she'd been overdoing it on the whole "Let's be heroic!" thing lately, she pondered... well, there had to be some kind of golden middle way between "Hurt and kill anyone who gets in my way, and maybe even anyone who doesn't if it looks like fun" and "Heroic, gleaming paragon too serious and just to be any kind of fun", right? Maybe paying evil unto evil was a more realistic career for her and her paramour...

But she didn't really have time for a lot of deep contemplation about ethical philosophy right now. The demosphinx was looking at her with narrowed, speculating eyes now. "Ah... this is the one, right? The one corrupted by infernal energy. You want me to help her, yes?" The voice was smooth, almost clinical. Anitra had a feeling that right now, the demon wasn't looking at her as a person, or even a potential meal - but rather, as a problem to be solved. Above her, Blake nodded. "Very perceptive. The corruption is rather... deeply rooted, I fear. A challenge, perhaps, even for one such as you. Every drop of infernal corruption must be cleansed from her, and_no part_ of her must be harmed. Can you do it?" For some reason, he clearly didn't want to come right out and mention her pregnancy - but hopefully, the demosphinx still got the message.

Apparently she did and, in response, she shifted her orange-red gaze to Blake and focused on him for a couple of seconds. Then she shrugged. "No." A simple word, spoken matter-of-factly and without hint of triumph of malice, but it hit the two of them like a thunderbolt... heck, worse than that. Either one of them could have shaken off a thunderbolt far easier than the wave of despair that washed over them in that moment, shared and reinforced by their telepathic connection.

That shock was only temporary, thankfully, as the demosphinx raised a paw. "I can, however, siphon off the vast majority of it. The life growing inside her... it has already implemented some tiny amount of those abundant, infernal energies into its being. If I tear that away, that spark of incomplete life will be snuffed. However, while this is not a situation I can claim to have any direct experience with, I am fairly confident that such minute amounts, by themselves, will have a purely negligible effect on it. It is a mere drop of the infernal in a rather large bucket, and the fundamental life-force that makes up this 'bucket' is not a fragile one."

Blake and Anitra alike blinked as they tried to parse this rather complicated metaphor, and finally Blake spoke - somewhat hesitantly. "So... you're saying that it won't make much real difference?" The demosphinx nodded. "If any. As long as the remaining energy is leeched away before any further corruption can take place. It is growing every second, you know." Returning the nod sharply, Blake craned his neck to make eye-contact with Anitra for a brief moment - sending her his love as much through the look in his eyes as over their telepathic bond. "Then you had best get to work quickly." He said quietly, and the demosphinx casually shrugged. "Certainly. If you would lie down on the altar for a moment... on your back, obviously. Feet towards the portal."

The cool, clinical voice somehow reminded Anitra of the temple healer her mother had taken her to when she developed a bad case of the mumps as a child. Calm, dispassionate, competent... hearing it coming from a giant, demonic Sphinx was strange enough to almost draw a giggle from her lips, but she repressed it and did as asked while Blake hovered protectively over her, off to the side where he wouldn't be in the way. She could see that he wasn't really keeping an eye on the demosphinx, though, so much as the rest of the room... after all, he'd made a bargain with her, and demons were well-known for always sticking to the letter of any such agreement, if not necessarily the spirit. And like herself, he'd clearly concluded that, as demons went, this one wasn't all that bad. She was, as they both repeatedly reminded themselves, still a demon - but at least she didn't seem to be actively malicious.

The same could not be said for those who lingered beyond the bounds of the ritual circle. The Lucifex had watched over the entire ritual, seemingly neither embarrassed nor aroused by any of the perverted contortions involved in it. Somehow, she suspected that the only thing that roused his desires was power. Flanking him were several members of his new Inner Circle - no doubt painstakingly_loyal to him, and eager to prove it. Of course, a lot could go wrong in the summoning of such a powerful demon - getting such an agreeable specimen had been pure luck, and she _could still be playing them all for fools and preparing to do something unspeakable while pretending to help, so having a number of expert demon handlers standing ready to leap in if necessary was _perfectly_justifiable.

Hence, neither she nor Blake had any reason to protest that part of the setup. So they hadn't. Instead, they were just... ready. Waiting for the jaws of the trap to close. With thoughts of childhood so recently dredged up, she was once again reminded of her mother, and the many tales of adventure and derring-do she'd shared with her daughter, hoping that she would follow in her footsteps one day. She had, in the end, though... not quite in the way Arthenia the Amazon had hoped, as rather exemplified by the way their last meeting had turned out. She quickly snuffed out that thought, and instead focused on a time where her mother had tried to teach her a life-lesson by telling her about the successful adventurer's attitude towards traps.

"Always be ready for a trap. ALWAYS. Every time you walk down a hallway, every time you open a door, every time you touch a chest, and_certainly_ every time you take some kind of shiny, likely-magical object off a plinth, stand or pedestal. You check, of course. Every team of adventurers needs someone who can spot, identify and disarm traps - at least, every LONG-LIVED adventuring team has one! Maybe it'll be you, one day! You've got the fingers for it, my girl! But the thing is... you can never REALLY know if you got them all. Did one of them escape your notice? Did one of the ones you disarmed have a backup trigger you missed? Heck, maybe you did everything right, but the team wizard who checked for _magical_traps just wasn't good enough, and there's an explosive rune waiting to go off the moment you take that next step, or touch the lid of that treasure-chest..."

"So when you do, always expect a trap. That way, when you finally step in one, you may just be able to get out of the way in time, or bring up your shield in time, or cast a defensive spell in time... anything is better than being caught flat-footed." At the time, she'd just grimaced at this drawn-out tale. It sounded rather stressful, after all. Rather than rouse any lust for adventure, it had just further convinced her that such a career was not for her. Now, though... now, she understood it. And she also understood the unspoken parts of it... namely that no matter how competent the team thief and wizard might be, sooner or later you'd run into a trap that nobody could disarm. Political backstabbing, well-laid military ambushes, traitorous allies... not all traps were as simple as a poisoned needle on a spring. So you just had to be ready, and expecting it, so that maybe you could get out of the way in time when everything went to hell.

Or maybe capital-H Hell, in this case. The Lucifex had a plan. She knew it. Blake knew it. And they were both highly confident that the trap would be sprung during the ritual itself. But they didn't know exactly what the trap was, and even if they did, they badly needed the 'bait' that dangled in it, so 'disarming' the trap wasn't really an option regardless. Therefore, they were ready. As soon as the explosive runes began to flash, as soon as the poisoned needle emerged from its tiny hidey-hole, as soon as the floor began to shake under their feet, they'd jump.

Even then, it was so subtle they nearly missed it. Demon-summoning and related disciplines tended to be showy - lots of dramatic arm-waving and loud chanting, black candles and braziers flaring with interestingly-colored fire. Maybe some kind of jeweled sacrificial dagger. Perhaps that was deliberate; she thought briefly when she finally spotted it. Maybe the higher-ups like the Lucifex and his Inner Circle deliberately taught their acolytes to do it that way so that no-one would suspect that they could do quite a lot just with a focused glare and some arcane syllables repeatedly mumbled under their breath. Certainly, those very same higher-ups didn't seem to be doing much at all, except keeping a tight eye on the ritual, just like they were supposed to...

But nonetheless, she was sure they were behind it. The demosphinx wouldn't have needed to be so subtle about it. The infernal energy that had been left in her body after her lengthy sojourn in Hell was being funneled off, right enough - she could feel it, feel it draining out of her body. It was like being washed clean of a film of clinging dirt she hadn't even realized was sticking to her skin. But she could also feel where it went and, when she focused her eyes just so, see it too... oozing towards the still active portal, like a river of sewage heading towards a drain.

It did not, however, actually reach it. Right before the flickering square, the flow divided in two, and flowed into the obsidian pillars instead. Previously unseen glyphs on their gleaming black surface were now beginning to light up, with just the vaguest of glows, barely noticeable even if you were looking for it. The portal itself, meanwhile, seemed to be getting just a bit more real. The edges were stabilizing and blending with the pillars, and the sooty darkness behind it was somehow coming more into focus. To someone who barely knew the first thing about Hell portals, that didn't mean a lot. But put together, it painted an ominous picture.

Blake had noticed too, and they shared the same immediate, nigh-instinctive conclusion. He's trying to create a permanent portal. Or at least a very stable, long-lasting one. Using the infernal energy you carried back with you to stabilize it. Blake's voice was rushed, clipped. Clearly, his mind was reeling as he tried to come up with a solution, a way to foil this plot before they accidentally handed the Cult of the Bloody Dawn the perfect tool to actually accomplish the demonic apocalypse they'd been chanting about for centuries. There was no need for Anitra to suggest a heroic option - if armies of demons poured forth from that portal, throwing the world into a chaotic war of blood, fire and damnation, the Dragon Utopia and the life they'd built there wouldn't survive either. And it certainly wasn't the kind of world they'd want to bring their unborn son into.

But what to do? Blake could probably destroy the portal itself before it fully stabilized with his breath. BlackFire, her trusty blade, was ready at hand - wrapped in a bundle of cloth beside the altar, close enough that she could probably reach it without even moving if she strained her arm - with that, she could cut off the flow of infernal energy in a very direct, literal fashion. Both solutions, however, had a problem - they involved stopping the ritual before it was complete. Before the demosphinx had finished siphoning off the infernal taint that still clung to her. She didn't need to ask the expert to know what that would mean; more infernal energy would be drawn into the growing spark within her womb, corrupting it further, pushing it far past the point of 'little to no effect'.

She needed to get rid of it all. She needed to let the demosphinx finish her work. But she couldn't allow the Lucifex and his cronies to use the shed energy in that fashion. The dilemma sent a shudder through her, and before her draconic eyes she watched that shudder carry on down the energy-flow, like a wave spreading down a stream. An insane idea popped into her head. That energy-flow... it was anchored to her very being, and would be until the demosphinx finished pulling it all out. It was part of her, whether she liked it or not. And back when she'd first fallen into Hell, during the panic of that long, magically-guided fall, she'd rather thoughtlessly done something rather ridiculous, only for it to work out just fine.

She'd severed the magic that pulled her along, and at the same time, pushed off it like it was a physical thing. In truth, that shouldn't have worked - magic had even less substance than air. It was like sunlight, or a thunderbolt - energy, in pure form. You couldn't grab on to that, hold it, push it or pull it... except, of course, that wizards, magi and sorcerers did just that all the time. What she'd done during her fall, without ever really stopping to think about it, had thus presumably been a particularly brutal and primitive application of the basic principles of magic - grabbing on to primal forces, shaping them and using them for her own ends.

Anitra was hardly a sorceress, nor a wise and learned wizard - but she had the blood of a black dragon in her and, as mostly everyone knew, black dragons possessed an inherent, magical gift that exceeded most mortal applications of the art. It wasn't so far-fetched, if you thought about it, that she should have inherited some of that potential herself through her Dragonchild father - if sadly without any of the instinctive knowledge of how to use it that a black dragon possessed from birth. Just enough to effect the most basic and brute-force alterations, perhaps. Fortunately, that was all she really needed in this case. She reached down the stream of energy that connected her to the portal, questing with her mind even as her hands twitched sympathetically by her sides. There it was, she could feel it - the stream, rooted in both of the pillars!

She tugged at it. Pulled and twisted. The stream of energy bucked and surged. But it was solidly anchored, and her 'grip' was slippery. Then it was gone - glancing up, she saw the Lucifex and his allies scowling down at the portal, sweat beading the foreheads of some of the younger and less experienced-looking cultists.

Of course. Of course they'd notice if something disrupted their own disruption. And of course they'd immediately work to smooth it out, even if they had no idea what it was or where it came from. The portal was growing more defined by the second. Even if she had the strength, she didn't have the time to wrestle with the lot of them. Blake's head was moving back and forth between the cadre of old men, the portal, and her. He knew she was doing something, but probably understood what even less than she did. Was he considering a direct attack on the Lucifex? Futile - they'd be ready for that, have powerful demons ready to spring up and get in his way. That would slow him down, if not stop him, and that was all they really needed.

A quick thought calmed him. She had no time for anything more complicated than a quick 'I've got this', shortened further to a burst of somewhat-unwarranted confidence. She had to figure this out. If she messed with the joining of the energy flow and the portal, they'd notice and stop her. Heck, if she messed with the energy flow at all, they'd probably notice - redirecting it was, after all, the crux of their plan. So... that left the portal. They'd set that up themselves, carved the arcane symbols and said the dark blessings. They probably figured they had that pretty well in hand, so maybe they weren't paying so much attention there. Could she 'reach into it' somehow, though the energy-flow?

She could. It gave her an instantaneous headache. It was like suddenly remembering a rather long, loud and boisterous song in a language she didn't understand or particularly liked. Anitra couldn't make heads or tails of it. But she also didn't have it slapped from her head by a bunch of old demon-cultists, so maybe she was on to something. Was there anything here that made sense? Any 'phrases' or 'words' that seemed at all familiar? ...yes, actually, there were, just a couple. They rang familiar, reminded her of being pulled down to Hell through a suddenly-appearing portal, and stepping back into her native reality through a somewhat more stable one.

Familiar, yes, but... still different. Could they be coordinates? Destination? Somehow, it seemed right. Dimly, mind racing, she wondered if she still retained some of that instinctive understanding of the inner workings of infernal energy that she'd possessed while riding high on her demonic Quickening down there. If some of that energy still lingered in her body, it was possible. Either that, or she was just desperate and guessing wildly. It didn't matter. The overwhelmed DragonRider didn't have any better ideas, and time was running out. With a push that turned the pounding headache into something more like a stiletto slipping smoothly between her skull and her upper vertebra, she changed the 'words' into something different, something 'homely'. Exhausted, she fell back on the altar, panting, belatedly realizing that she'd been straining her whole body.

The demosphinx gazed down at her, paws still moving as it guided the infernal energy out of her, gradually leeching the corruption from every solitary cell in her body. The expression on the huge face was bemused and also a bit confused. "How strange. You should feel no discomfort in this process. In fact, you should not be able to feel anything at all. Perhaps the corruption is more deeply rooted than I first assumed..." Anitra grinned tiredly. Yeah, the demosphinx was definitely not in on the plan - she couldn't imagine anyone, not even a demon, being able to maintain such a perfect pokerface under the circumstances. "Don't worry about it..." she said, words slurring slightly. Her tongue felt numb and swollen, and it wasn't because of the various oral perversions she'd been engaging in earlier. "Whatever it was, it has passed. Please, continue."

Burning eyes narrowing speculatively, the demosphinx nodded and continued the ritual, even as the last orgy came to an end around them. The last few cultists collapsed, snoring or just staring exhaustedly up at the basalt dome, and were dragged safely away by the waiting servants. This included Direza's masochistic coterie, each of them covered in red lines courtesy of her whip and sporting various other minor injuries besides, leaving the drow to sit alone on her altar, bent and tired-looking. The exhaustion was probably not entirely feigned, but perhaps rather more mental than physical. Anitra again reminded herself of the need to do something very nice indeed for both her AND Melora once they got home. This whole affair had taken a toll on everyone, in several different ways...

Among the cultists being dragged from the circle was Chabat, who'd outright passed out - perhaps it had something to do with sleep deprivation, owing to nearly a week of spending half the night getting her ass ruined and the other half sleeping rather gingerly. The servants who were moving her unconscious body were very carefully gripping her wrists as they pulled her across the smooth basalt floor, staying as far away as possible from her rear end, which was leaving behind a trail of cum stained blood, pus and various other, even-less-pleasant things as it was dragged along. 'Nitemare' had thus been similarly left behind, resting on her altar and affecting a casual demeanor as she looked at the demosphinx and the Hell-portal with a disinterested expression. After all, she was a denizen of the nether planes herself, so what wonder did any of it hold for her?

The demosphinx did not seem overly concerned about the fact that the buffet table had been cleared. Presumably, she had eaten her fill already - or maybe she was just too focused on the task at hand to worry about it. Certainly, whatever her dietary preferences, one could not fault her work ethic. The whole process had taken less than half an hour, by Anitra's reckoning - probably closer to twenty minutes - and she could already both see and feel the flow of energy shrinking, petering out, and finally stopping altogether. Finally, the demosphinx straightened up, putting her forepaws back on the ground and working her shoulders with an audible crack. "That should do it. Every last drop of energy I could safely remove is gone, sent back through the portal to where it belongs. I must admit to being somewhat curious about how you were able to wind up so_suffused_ with it..."

Anitra nodded absently, her attention elsewhere. The changed in the portal and the two obsidian pillars that framed it were rather noticeable at this point - glowing symbols that hadn't been there at the beginning were now gleaming brightly, albeit with a rather sickly color that seemed to shift regularly between pus-green, puke-yellow and bloody-diarrhea-red. She hadn't even been aware that last one was an actual color before she saw it and had to suppress a sudden flash of nausea. The portal itself was a solid square of impenetrable black, resembling nothing so much as a hole in reality itself... which was pretty much what it was, after all. She already knew that if she got off the altar and walked around it, she'd find that the portal remained just as square and just as large regardless of where she viewed it from, even twisting its solid-seeming frame around it in flagrant defiance of basic geometry and perspective.

Just as interesting was the view of the peanut-gallery. Some members of the Lucifex's Inner Circle were looking at the portal with relief and satisfaction - seeing a job well done. But several others, including the big man himself, were wrinkling their brows and letting their eyes dart back and forth between it, the demosphinx, Blake and herself. Their poorly hidden worry was a very heartening sight indeed... for the only explanation she could think of for it was that they'd expected a horde of demons to have rampaged through the freshly established portal already. But while it certainly looked impressive, nothing was passing through it - and meanwhile, the demosphinx had noticed the change herself. Her fiery eyes jumped from the elders to the portal while her mind worked, and a calculating expression flashed across her face. Clearly, she was contemplating exactly what kind of plot she'd landed in the middle of, and how to best profit from it.

Blake, however, clearly didn't see any point in treading the delicate steps of intrigue and deception anymore. After noticing the Lucifex's expression himself, and noting the lack of rampaging, demonic hordes, he had amply reassured himself that whatever his dear Anitra had been plotting, it had worked. Straightening up, he turned his head towards the waiting Inner Circle cultists and flashed them a grin. "Well, that all worked out splendidly, don't you agree? Thank you _ever_so much for your kind cooperation, it's been marvelous, we'll just see ourselves out... maybe take a swing past the buffet-tables on the way, if they haven't been picked completely clean yet." His voice was laced with enough sarcastic mockery to keep your work-a-day traitorous vizier supplied for a month or more.

Based on the Luxifex's growing scowl, however, he was in no mood to carry on the friendly act either, and Anitra was rolling off the altar to grab her gear even before he began speaking, his voice sharp and filled with loathing. "Oh, you're not going anywhere, my big, scaly 'friend'... what kind of host would I be if I let you leave before the party reached its climax?" He tapped the floor with his staff, causing a circle of fire to spring into existence around his feet, glowing symbols gradually writing themselves around the periphery. "They did something to the portal. Get it fixed,now!" he then hissed, clearly directed at the handful of cultists around him. As they cautiously spread out, grabbing various arcane trinkets from around their persons and beginning the inevitable, guttural chants of summoning, Blake chuckled and took a menacing step forwards, his claws tearing into the basalt floor. "Oh, well, if you are going to insist, I suppose I could stay for one more... bite."

The cultists were suddenly scattering a lot faster, obviously eager to carry out their orders and not just desperate to put some distance between themselves and their beloved leader. The Lucifex, however, stood firm, beginning his own chant while a hellish glow awakened in his eyes. With a scornful glance at the fiery circle that surrounded the old cult-leader, Blake reared back his head and drew in a deep breath. While the Lucifex's rapid-fire chant was still climbing towards its crescendo, he unleashed his terrible breath weapon, letting a broad tongue of intensely red flame wash towards the old man.

The flame of a black dragon could melt just about anything, and burned through magic as easily as steel. It was the main tool of a twisted race of living weapons, created by an ambitious god to wage war on his peers... a fire that could burn the gods themselves. That flame washed towards the Lucifex, now... and parted around him, like water hitting a ship's prow. A dry, rasping voice could be heard in the suddenly-still basalt dome as the roar of the flames died away, speaking a familiar chant of its own. "Born in lust, turn to dust... born in sin, come on in... born in vice, say it thrice..." A gusty sigh followed it, even as a robed, skeletal figure became visible, standing in front of the Lucifex with a staff of twisted bone upraised. "Really... I suppose in the end, I must do everything myself after all. So disappointing..."

The Lucifex cringed back from the sudden appearance of the High Devil, Legion, King of Hell. "We carried out the plan exactly as you commanded! The DragonRider or her accursed dragon must have worked some unexpected trick!" he whined. "The portal HAS been established, just as I promised! See for yourself!" Legion merely raised one hairless eyebrow and tsk'd. "I see just fine, and hear what sounds like an attempt to divert blame to boot. The portal is there, yes, but pointed in entirely the wrong direction. Some remote corner... it's eating through the supplied energy at an accelerated rate. If your pathetic minions can manage to get it redirected in a timely fashion, it may still be useful to us, but alas, that seems... unlikely." He shook his pale, bulbous head in clear annoyance. "You got sloppy, mortal. It seems I must return to my original plan after all, then."

His piercing, unnatural eyes found Anitra even as she popped up from behind the altar, sword in hand and armor in place. Well, what of her armor could still fit, anyway - the breastplate was a no-go, her pregnancy had simply advanced too much between her stay in Hell and the past week in the Temple - but the rest of the gear would still offer her some protection! Meanwhile, on her flanks, Direza had begun to chant the words of Lolth's prayers while hefting the menacing rod that had dangled from her belt for so long, and Melora - still wearing her demonic disguise - stepped confidently towards a couple of cultists who'd been attempting to approach the gate from her side, twisted polearm in hand. It had been resting against her designated altar during the entire ritual - no-one had thought it strange for a demon to carry a weapon even into an orgy.

Legion seemed unfazed by the number of foes he was facing, however - and, indeed, by the fury that burned in Blake's eyes as he glared down at him, crimson flame licking at his chops with every breath. "Foolish insects..." he muttered, shaking his head. "Do you truly think you can face me, here?" His voice rose steadily as he neared the end of the sentence, and he punctuated it by rapping the butt of his bone-staff against the floor. The ground seemed to just melt away in large chunks, spawning magma-tunnels from where a horde of demons crawled, each scrambling to be the first out of the newly created gates. "The walls are thin in this place. I can bring most of my power to bear. And while I might not be able to bring my entire army without the portal in place, I can certainly bring enough to deal with you all."

The passion had gone out of his voice after that brief outburst, and now it once again sounded like dry, rustling leaves... or perhaps dry bones. In fact, he seemed almost bored as he gestured with his staff, sending the newly summoned demons scurrying forwards. "Go. Kill them all, except the girl. Disable her. Remove arms and legs, cauterize the wounds to prevent bleeding - that should make her safe enough to handle." Behind him, the Lucifex caught up with events with a sudden start, and rapped his own staff on the floor, producing a loud, gong-like sound. This caused the huge, bronzed double-doors of the chamber to spring open, revealing rows of waiting ambushers - both regular cultists and armored guardians, including a handful that sported demonic traits of their own. He shrieked orders at them, mirroring what Legion had already said, albeit with far less bored confidence. Legion twisted his lips in disgust as he glanced back towards the old man. "Oh yes, do go ahead... remind me why I have any use for you whatsoever at this point..." he said acidly.

The demons were closing in on Blake, cautiously fanning out to ensure that his breath wouldn't be able to catch more than one or two of them. Ready to leap for his flanks the moment he exposed himself by striking. Direza and Melora were keeping the Inner Circle cultists away from the portal with admirable skill and determination, but a few leftover demons were joining in now - mostly just in the hopes of pushing past them to get to their true target, namely herself. And, behind her, a horde of fanatical cultist warriors were streaming in, eyes alight with religious exaltation as they realized they'd be fighting alongside the demons they so admired, under the command of a high devil. They'd be merely the vanguard - there were thousands of cultists in the temple on a regular day, and she'd eat her own sword if the Lucifex hadn't quietly brought more guards in while he was inviting acolytes for the orgy anyway.

All in all, things looked about as bleak as they could possibly get, so she flashed a broad smile up at Blake. Time for the party to_really _get started, wouldn't you say? He returned the grin while never taking his eyes off the surrounding demons. Oh, certainly... now that the guest of honor has arrived, there's really no reason to delay any longer. "Direza! Melora! If you have any left, scatter them now!" He barked, suddenly speaking out loud. The two addressed jumped, and quickly took a step back from their ongoing conflict to reach into what little clothes they wore. Each pulled out a small handful of... pebbles, basically. Perfectly ordinary pebbles, as could be found anywhere on the continent and quite likely everywhere beyond it. Melora threw hers at the foes she'd been fighting, while Direza hurled hers in the general direction of the cultists that were filtering in through the main doors. A couple of the tiny rocks managed to bounce off a robe-clad chest or muscular, demonic leg, to no effect whatsoever.

But appearances can be deceiving, and as the bards were so fond of saying, it's what's inside that count. In this case, that was particularly true, for each of those pebbles was, in truth, a small diamond coated in hardened clay. The bottomless mines of the Utopia produced thousands of diamonds every year, many of them huge, and when they were worked into useful magical tools or beautiful decorations, smaller fragments were often left over. A plentiful resource for a creative enchanter - diamonds were, after all, just about the finest material in the world for storing and directing magical energy. And the Utopia was positively rife with creative enchanters these days, all burning with eagerness to demonstrate their trustworthiness and usefulness to their draconic hosts in the wake of an attack by an outsider.

Most of the pebbles hadn't even stopped rolling by the time Blake spoke the command word that activated the latent enchantment within them. The magical glow exploded outwards, cracking the clay shell, and leaving them shining bright as tiny stars on the floor while most of the human combatants paused in a mixture of confusion and caution. The demons carried on undeterred, though... until a suddenly-appearing greatsword forged from some kind of black metal bisected five of them in a single blow. At that point, they started to pay attention - but it was far, far too late.

The humongous sword was wielded by a giant of a man, clad in black plate armor that left his sword-arm free, with a bandoleer of throwing-knives strapped across his chest and a ragged, black cape hanging from his shoulders. One of his eyes was closed, while the other burned fiercely. He cut an intimidating figure all by himself - but he was not alone, far from it. Several other new arrivals had appeared just as suddenly: A white-haired young man with a long, red coat and a bare chest had popped up amongst the cultists who had been trying to reach the portal, a devil-may-care grin on his face and vaguely-glowing sword draped casually over his shoulders. A hulking man wearing bulky, dusty-green plate-armor with a full helmet of an unfamiliar design manifested in front of the suddenly-hesitant cultist forces at the main door, wielding something that looked to be a modified siege-crossbow with an oversized magazine. A shapely woman wearing skimpy armor, a dark cowl and a brooding expression had sprung into existence not far from Anitra, and was now training a pair of small hand-crossbows that glowed with powerful enchantments - no doubt of the ammo-creating, automatically-reloading variant - on the nearest demons.

The same, she knew, would be happening all over the temple. Ever since their arrival, Direza and Melora had been scattering those 'pebbles' everywhere they went - in ritual chambers and corridors, from the kitchen to the barracks - and over the past week, Anitra had helped too. Each of the tiny diamonds held a fragment of a powerful teleportation-spell, and a connection to the rest. A single word had activated them all simultaneously, creating a powerful, distributed teleportation beacon across the entire expanse of the labyrinthine temple. A beacon that was now being used by the dozens of dedicated demon hunters that Blake himself, the Utopia's dragons, and their various contacts and agents across the human kingdoms and empires had contacted in advance, and equipped with the other, more bulky half of the enchantment. The impatient lot had probably been sitting ready for most of the day, having been informed well in advance of when the party would be likely to start. All of them willing to leap into the unknown, weapon at the ready, for a chance to finally wipe out the Bloody Dawn Cult once and for all.

They all had different reasons, she knew. Some of them had lost loved ones, limbs, or pieces of themselves to demons, and sworn revenge. Some were blessed by the gods, and pursued the grand destiny of protecting the world from demonic incursions. Some were cursed, pursued by demons wherever they went, and had simply decided to take the fight to them. Some just loved to fight, and had picked the least ethically questionable target they could find for their bloodlust. A few were hellspawn themselves, carrying demonic blood and taking the idea of fighting against their heritage a bit literally. Right now, however, they all had one thing in common: They were HERE, armed and ready, well-rested, and completely prepared to raise seven shades of havoc.

Legion's grimace was thunderous as he watched the force he'd summoned to overwhelm Blake get systematically dismantled by a mere handful of veteran demon-hunters. Then, with a sneer, he lifted his staff and brought it down on the floor once more, even as Blake finished tracing a complex sigil in the air with his claws, mumbling something jagged-sounding under his breath. The bone-staff cracked against the basalt, and the air seemed to ripple around Legion... and then, nothing at all happened. The High Devil looked around with a genuinely surprised look on his face, before his eyes - burning with cold hatred - were drawn inexorably towards Blake, who was smiling broadly... if looking slightly out of breath. "You!" He declared thunderously, his voice carrying cleanly over the growing din of battle. It sounded more like the crack of breaking bones than dry leaves now, in Anitra's opinion. Seemed like the air was finally being let out of his inflated, demonic ego!

"What have you done?!" Legion demanded, pointing imperiously towards Blake, who lifted an eyebrow. It really sounded like he was expecting a swift answer, and as it happened, he got it. "Oh, just a little spell called Dimensional Anchor... simple stuff. Keeps people from teleporting away or going on cross-dimensional trips. Handy for dealing with cowards who are prone to running away with their tail between their legs the moment things go sour." Blake's scorn was thick, perhaps enough so to hide the slight tremor in his voice. Anitra well knew that the 'simple stuff' bit had been sheer bravado. Dimensional Anchor was highly-advanced and esoteric magic, the kind usually thrown around by archmages and veteran wizards - without a doubt the most powerful and complex spell Blake had ever wielded. He had been working tirelessly on memorizing and mastering it ever since her disappearance - knowing exactly who was to blame, and wanting to make absolutely sure that if they met again, the slippery devil wouldn't be making such a swift exit as last time.

Legion answered with a sour scowl, entirely failing to rise to the 'cowardice' bait. "Ah, I see the arcane capacity of black dragons is even greater than I had heard. I will make a note of that. I am familiar with that spell, however, and it is far from impenetrable..." He lifted his staff and made a casual gesture towards the glowing area of the dome, causing it to explode outwards - sending huge basalt blocks flying towards the surrounding mountains, and exposing the evening sky in the process. The sun was sinking outside, dying everything red - most appropriate, in Anitra's opinion. No bloody dawn, but a bloody sunset for this vicious cult!

"It has a sharply limited range. Also, it requires constant upkeep, and can be ended by the simple expenditure of killing its caster. Finally, while it disrupts intra-planar teleportation going in both directions, it only stops inter-planar travel going out..." His upraised staff was brought down again, and fresh hellholes formed in the floor, unleashing a wave of howling demons - all dashing towards Blake with single-minded ferocity, entirely ignoring the surrounding demon hunters. At the same time, Legion took a step back, turned on his heel, and walked past the Lucifex - who was gaping, jaw hanging freely as his eyes darted around at the ruination of his church and ambitions - before rising into the air and floating towards the gap in the ceiling at a stately pace.

Under the circumstances, there was really only one thing for Blake to do - and so, despite lingering fatigue from casting such a potent spell, and the continued drain of its upkeep, he roared and spread his wings before leaping forwards, over the heads of the charging demons, clawing for altitude. There was barely enough room under the vast dome for him to maneuver, but he was aiming squarely for the torn-open patch and the High Devil who was flying out through it without deigning to look back for a moment.

Only one thing he could do... in the growing chaos, amidst the cries and screams of demons and hunters, watching several attackers be shot down by the twirling, bowgun-packing huntress who had appeared by her side earlier, it took a few moments too long for Anitra to fully parse that thought, and her knuckles whitened as she reflexively tightened her grip on her sword. The setup was too perfect. None of the demons that Legion had summoned to assault Blake had been in possession of functional wings - and she knew perfectly well that such creatures DID exist. He was also moving far too slowly - there was no way he was going to let pride or arrogance stop him from leaving the expanding warzone as fast as possible. It had to be a trap!

This thought was passed on to Blake over their telepathic bond the moment it occurred to her, and he promptly shifted his wings to brake, twisting his body away from his previous trajectory. It was too late to stop the impact, but it ensured that he hit the solid wall of multi-ton basalt blocks shoulder-first rather than head-first, and at a somewhat lower velocity than would have otherwise been the case. He still tore a very real hole in the dome, though, even as the illusion of the evening sky faded from view, along with the equally-illusional Legion. Just as she had feared, in the general confusion even his_sharp eyes hadn't been able to spot the telltale glow of a magical illusion when the illusion itself was _of a brightly-glowing sunset. Her heart was in her throat as she watched him tumble out through this new, real gap, wings pulled in to protect them from breaks and tears, surrounded by blocks of suddenly-ballistic basalt. She could feel his pain keenly over their bond.

Keenly enough that it distracted her from continuing the train of thought that had led her to conclude that Legion's apparent escape-attempt had to be fake. With her eyes and mind alike focused in a single direction, she barely noticed how most of the demonic mob that had been charging forwards towards Blake's original position, ignoring the severe losses they took as they dashed past the huge, one-eyed swordsman, had changed direction and were now bearing down on the dual-wielding huntress that had wound up being Anitra's bodyguard mostly by accident. Suddenly under attack from every direction, the woman was forced to dance away, pirouetting between rending claws and gnashing fangs as she sought room to maneuver and landed bolt after magical bolt in the tough flesh of her assailants.

Her instincts shouted bloody murder just in time, making the last few vital connections. If Legion wasn't there, he had to be elsewhere. And if he wasn't running away, he must still be pursuing his goals. She felt a movement in the air and lashed out with her sword on pure reflex, tightly-coiled muscles snapping like a triggered mousetrap. BlackFire's blade, forged from a fallen star and quenched in the blood of a Black Dragon, could cut through any enchantment - even one woven by a King of Hell. Thus, as it hit its mark, the cloak of invisibility that Legion had covered himself in dispelled...

This gave her just enough time to see the skeletal grin of dreadful triumph on his face as one of his bony hands closed around her throat. He'd gotten too close! Worse, her sword was stuck halfway through his bone-staff, which was apparently made of something stern enough to stop even so keen a blade and, as he effortlessly lifted her off the ground by the neck, she found herself forced to use her spare hand to grip his thin, fragile-seeming wrist just to take some of the pressure off her windpipe. She could feel her strength being sapped through that tight grip, the fingers digging cruelly into her neck, even as Legion strode forwards, carrying her along without any apparent effort. Under the emaciated appearance, he was, after all, a High Devil, and his strength was of another order altogether.

She couldn't turn her head under these circumstances, but she didn't need to, either. She knew where he was taking her. After all, there was a_third_ weakness to the Dimensional Anchor spell, which he had conveniently neglected to mention while spurring Blake into action... namely that it did not do anything to any already established dimensional bridges. The portal remained where it had always been, as stable and geometry-defying as ever - and since the cultists sent to 'adjust' it had by now been either slain or thoroughly distracted, protecting it no longer stood as a high priority for either the nearby demon hunters or Melora and Direza. Those two, meanwhile, had been pulled into the general chaos of the melee and, even if they had noticed what was happening, they wouldn't be able to extricate themselves in time to make any difference.

Of course, the portal wasn't connecting to where it was supposed to - which would probably have been the middle of Legion's main fortress - but it was still connected to the nether planes, and that seemed to be all he cared about. Perhaps with good reason. Based on what she knew, even now, he wasn't at his full strength. The location had allowed him to carry a fair amount of his power with him to the World-Plane, thanks to thin walls made even thinner by the cultists' constant effort - but in Hell itself he'd be stronger yet, possibly by a wide margin. Clearly, he figured he could easily make his way back to his center of power with her in tow at that point, wherever he might appear in that blasted and inhospitable land.

Just before he reached the portal, however, the lingering question of where, exactly, it DID lead to, was answered... as a tall, stunningly beautiful she-devil stepped through it, eyes alert and elegantly-clawed hands held ready at her side. Those eyes widened as she saw Legion himself striding towards her, holding Anitra by the neck in one hand and his staff in the other, her sword still stuck halfway through it. She didn't hesitate, then - but rather, leaped forwards with a blood-curdling war cry that Anitra was pleasantly familiar with. She hadn't been sure how Kylaees and her rebellious demonesses would react to the sudden, unexpected opening of a somewhat stable portal in the middle of their recently conquered fortress, but it wasn't as if she'd had a choice - she had never used any OTHER portals in Hell, so those were the only coordinates to linger in her mind.

Legion seemed to recognize Kylaees too - presumably, he'd been keeping a close, if stealthy, eye on events in that distant province, while waiting for Anitra to 'escape' and carry her payload of infernal energy back to the world above, where she'd be left with no other options but to seek help from his eagerly-waiting co-conspirators... had he also planned for The Bloody Lady to inform her of the nature of her corruption, leaking his supposed plans to her deliberately, or did he simply have such elegantly multilayered plans that she would have played into them regardless?

All of this played through her mind at breakneck speed as she watched Kylaees leap forwards, hands raised, out the corner of her eye. The power she had inherited from Agares when she devoured his heart was far less than that possessed by Legion, needless to say... but having arrived through the stable portal, she would've been able to bring_all_ of it with her, while her adversary had been forced to leave much of his strength behind in order to pierce the veil - even with as thin as it was in this place. So chances were that the fierce she-devil was more-or-less evenly matched with Legion... except, of course, for the fact that he was far older and more experienced than her, while she'd had barely a week to get used to her newly-grown powers. Certainly, he did not seem overly intimidated as he lifted his bone-staff to meet her charge, ignoring the fact that BlackFire's blade remained stuck halfway through it a ways down, with Anitra's hand still clinging weakly to the hilt.

With Legion's bony fingers around her neck steadily draining her strength, she was finding it increasingly difficult to maintain that grip, and indeed her grip on consciousness. Still, this was clearly the best chance she was going to get, with the powerful devil's attentions forcibly divided between keeping her subdued and dealing with Kylaees' attack... and she still had enough strength left to send a mental command to the sword, igniting its smoldering fire. The black blade flashed crimson, and the suddenly-emerged dragonflame burned clear through the twisted, yellow-white bone of the staff.

Having his staff suddenly shortened by several handspans threw Legion off-balance, disturbing his aim as the tip unleashed a broad wave of shimmering force. It still stopped Kylaees' charge, but rather than hitting her dead-on and sending her directly back through the portal, or at least out of his way, it just sent her tumbling sideways, her body instinctively twisting in the air to land on all fours like a great cat. Completing that metaphor, she immediately bunched her muscles to leap at him anew from that primal position, once again denying him the ability to focus entirely on either of his opponents.

Or perhaps he merely wasn't expecting Anitra to have enough strength left to actually lift her burning sword and reverse her grip on the hilt in order to stab down at him - it seemed a more likely approach than trying to flail at him from this awkward position. And in truth, she only barely managed - the energy was leaking out of her like a bucket with a hole in the bottom. The only reason she was still conscious was that she had have a full-blown Draconic Quickening going before he grabbed her, and indeed a bit of undigested cum lingering in her belly, ready to be metabolized as needed. The last bit probably wouldn't have been true if her Quickening had not, apparently, grown more efficient due to the weeks of using it non-stop in Hell - and if she hadn't realized this could happen, then Legion probably had no idea either. This, at least, might have explained the look of surprise on his face as she plunged the burning tip of her sword into his chest.

It felt like stabbing a granite wall. Or worse - when alight, her sword could actually melt its way through granite - but he held up, somehow! The impact numbed her already-tired fingers, and sent the still-burning sword spinning away from her grip, even as Legion's hand tightened even further around her throat...

Still, even as her vision darkened, she smiled in satisfaction at the sound of his scream. It sounded like a thousand voices mixed together, each expressing a different mixture of surprise, pain, and consternation. Looking down, she saw the fire spread across his chest, dark robes and desiccated flesh alike set alight by the dragonflame.

As it clawed at his ancient body, the fire exposed his ribcage - or rather, a solid wall of bone. There were no ribs for a dagger to slide between, no space beneath for an upwards blow - a completely solid and contiguous box of ancient bone, harder than any stone, protected Legion's blackened heart. However, at the very front, it was burnt and cracked from the impact of BlackFire's tip... and as the King of Hell reeled in pain, his flesh being steadily devoured, Kylaees' obsidian-nailed hand slipped past his guard and plunged directly at that spot, like the tip of a spear. The bone shattered, shards flying from the impact, and her hand sunk inside while black blood spattered everywhere.

Consciousness fled from Anitra's mind for a second. Legion's hand had cut off her air entirely. Then, the grip slackened and she opened her eyes just in time to watch Kylaees stand triumphant over Legion's crumpled body, holding a slowly-pulsating lump of coal black tissue in her hand. The she-devil hesitated as she looked at it, as if worrying that devouring it might somehow infect her with the same perverse insidiousness that had defined Legion. Pushing her way up from the floor - apparently, she'd fallen flat at some point - Anitra coughed to clear her throat. "What are you waiting for? Do you want him to come back?" she cried. With a flickering glance towards her, Kylaees grimaced and opened her mouth, before clamping down on the shivering lump with her inhumanly-sharp teeth. Did it look any more appetizing to a demon than it did to a human? From the look on the she-devil's face, not by very much...

But eat it she did, and thus ended the reign of one of the Seven Kings of Hell. Kylaees changed, as she had the first time, albeit more subtly - her appearance was left almost entirely human, with only her eyes retaining a partial trace of her demonic nature; the once venom-green schlera had turned boring old white, but the irises remained blood-red. Her skin-tone turned pale enough that she merely looked marginally sunburned, and her teeth looked largely normal, except for some slightly enlarged canines and the fact that they were currently soaked in tar-black blood and had bits of demon heart stuck between them. Her fingernails were still black, too, and rather pointy looking, but they no longer resembled talons... not that they were likely to be any less deadly than they'd been a moment ago. Kylaees looked down on those hands, painted in Legion's blood, and beyond them to the pile of dust on the floor that was now all that was left of the once-fearsome archdevil. "This is gonna take some time getting used to..." she mumbled.

It was all over but the clean-up, at that point. The remaining demons fought desperately, but there were no more reinforcements coming, and the demon hunters systematically took them apart. It was what they_did_, after all. Some of the cultists went the same way, while others saw which way the tide was moving and surrendered. The battle in the throne room was the first to end, owing largely to the destructive might Blake was able to unleash on the remaining demons once he'd finished picking himself out of the debris of the broken dome and crawled back inside. Seeing a dragon, burning with fury - and embarrassment at falling for Legion's trap, although only Anitra could sense that side of it - was a terrifying vision indeed, and enough to make a large number of the cultist guards throw down their weapons rather than facing it. Demon hunters were a familiar threat to them. Blake wasn't.

Once things had calmed down, with the last of the demons slaughtered and their worshipers rounded up under the watchful eye of the demon hunters, the demosphinx reappeared. Or rather, became noticeable again. Both Anitra and Kylaees jumped with surprise when the huge creature seemed to pop out of thin air quite near them, and several of the demon hunters reacted similarly, swinging weapons around to face her. It was clear, however, that she wasn't about to start any trouble - she was lying down, looking as peaceful and harmless as a black-furred, demonic, human headed lion the size of a small hut could manage.

"Nicely done. I never liked that fellow anyway, you know..." she said calmly, nodding towards the pile of dust and ashes that was once Legion. Anitra lifted an eyebrow. "I'm not sure anyone_did, even those who worked for him. 's that why you decided not to help him?" The demosphinx shrugged, or as close to it as she could while lying down. "I had no _reason to aid him. I was never part of his plot, just another patsy. And we had a bargain, did we not? One that has been carried out to the full satisfaction of both parties. There is no reason for any hostility between us." The last part seemed directed mostly towards the demon hunters who currently surrounded and eyed her with deep suspicion. They'd mostly ignored Kylaees, perhaps assuming her to be merely a minor hellspawn - like several of their own - due to her human-like appearance. None of them had seen her emerge from the portal, kill Legion, or devour his heart to affect that transformation - too busy with their own scuffles at the time. But nobody was going to mistake the demosphinx for anything but what she was...

Anitra, however, made a calming gesture towards them. There were more than the four that had appeared in the throne room during the initial attack - several others had been filtering in, escorting groups of prisoners, since the grand dome served as a convenient place to gather all of the surrendered cultists. The gesture didn't have much effect, until Blake leaned over and nodded. "Indeed. You carried out the task I requested of you splendidly, and the payment you requested in return was more than fair. If anything, I owe you gratitude for your assistance." Some of the demon hunters backed off at that point. Others followed suit once his withering gaze fell on them. None of them particularly wanted to start a fight with a black dragon by themselves, and besides, he was the one who had handed them this definitive victory over the Bloody Dawn. All of them also had at least a vague notion that he was part of a larger group, one with immense resources at its disposal, and many outright knew the truth of the Utopia - either way, no point making an enemy of that without a damn good reason.

The demosphinx ignored the reluctantly retreating demon hunters to flash him a naughty grin. "I am delighted to hear that. I found the exchange... profitable, myself. Indeed, do not hesitate to summon me again should you have need of further assistance. I'm sure we could work out a reasonable price for... whatever it might be..." Blake lowered his head near hers to return the grin, in an offhanded sort of way. "Sounds likely... but alas, I doubt I could easily pull off the necessary summoning rituals by myself. It took rather a lot of manpower, you know... and womanpower besides." His eyes flickered towards the wall where the prisoners were seated, among them the vast majority of the ritual participants, who had been too exhausted or unconscious to participate in the battle. The demon hunters had, likely more out of embarrassment than mercilessness, handed out spare robes to them.

The demosphinx chuckled and shook her head. "Oh, no worries... if YOU are there, I hardly need such a tasty buffet to lure me through. Just a basic ritual for opening the way will suffice. Call my name, and I will answer, rest assured..." Then she leaned slightly forwards to whisper something in his ear, and he nodded hesitantly. "I'll... keep that in mind." His voice was thoughtful. It was no longer just an exchange of banter, but a genuine offer of future help, at a highly affordable price. With that out of the way, the demosphinx's huge eyes fixed on Kylaees instead, and she gave her fellow demoness a respectful nod. "And here is the newly-minted Queen Kylaees, leader of the notorious Renegades of Hell... you certainly don't waste any time, do you? It's been mere days since I heard rumors of your ascension to the rank of Duchess, and the consternation that fact has spread among the central hierarchy..."

Kylaees shrugged with not-terribly-convincing casualness. "Well, you know. No point resting on your laurels. Perhaps you'd like to join us? I'm sure you recognize the need for a change in the way female demons are perceived as well as I do. And if the hierarchy won't listen, well, they'll have to feel..." her voice grew steadily more confident towards the end, and Anitra nodded along without really thinking about it. She'd really created something important, there. And hey... 'The Renegades of Hell'? Names didn't get much more awesome than that!

The demosphinx, meanwhile, seemed to chew on it for a bit before finally nodding. "I think I would like to see the rebellion you are building for myself. Besides, if this portal points to your home, I do not have much of a choice... well, short of expending a great deal of power on simply leaping back, now that the Dimensional Anchor is no longer in effect. And I have already spent a lot. Turning unnoticeable among so many powerful individuals isn't easy, I'll have you know..." she sighed, shaking her head, while Anitra slowly nodded. Yeah, no shit that wasn't going to be easy. She'd heard about that - the best kind of invisibility, disappearing not from sight but from mind. If you simply can't be seen, well, people can still find you just by randomly walking into you, and if they KNOW you just disappeared, they might try something clever like scattering powder in the air or whatnot. But if everyone just forget you exist, and stop paying attention to you so thoroughly that they just step around you without a thought, well, you're pretty much set. This demosphinx truly was a force to be reckoned with!

This, however, gave Anitra an idea, and she quickly looked around for a demon hunter who seemed suitably leader-ish without much success. While some demon-hunters banded together into groups, or even guilds, most were lone wolves that only got together to talk shop and, occasionally, help each other avert end-of-the-world scenarios. Or raid a cult that had given each and every one of them headaches at various points in time, as the case may be. Still, some of them did seem to command some kind of general respect, and she made a beeline for one of them.

He was a hellspawn, obviously - a half-demon, and not the kind with easily-missed traits like maybe a tiny pair of horns easily concealed by a jauntily angled hat, or some fancy eyes that could be hidden by smoky spectacles or something. His skin was bright-red, his right arm was a huge, bulky thing that looked like it belonged on a golem or something, and the left was clearly superhumanly strong too, if the bulky crossbow he was holding in it was as heavy as it seemed - it would've been considered a pretty large, two-handed weapon by most reckonings... oh, and judging by the width of the filed-down bone-circles on his brow, he'd had a pretty hefty set of horns at some point. He also had some very impressive black sideburns, a huge cigar hanging from one corner of his mouth, and a sardonic expression on his face as he looked out over the growing mob of wretched-looking cultists. None of the other demon-hunters were giving him second glances or shooting suspicious looks at his back, however, so he'd clearly proven his bonafides thoroughly at one or more points in the past.

He took out the cigar to flash her a friendly smile when she approached, his eyes only briefly straying to her heavily exposed chest, and he listened attentively when she explained her idea to him. "The way I see it, there are basically two kinds of people there..." she said, gesturing towards the cultists. "Dumb, well-meaning stooges who genuinely believe that demons are the wave of the future, and insidious, plotting snakes who will worship anyone and anything that offers them power. For the former, it's practically a reward - and for the later, it's an ironically appropriate punishment. Wouldn't you agree?" He did, but was still not convinced. She pushed a bit harder. "My friend over there, Kylaees... she's leading a rebellion against the regular hierarchy of Hell, you know. They're already worried about her. Once they learn that Legion fell at her hand, they'll be terrified."

She'd been hesitant to draw attention to Kylaees, but fortunately, this bulky demon hunter didn't seem inclined to immediately train his hefty crossbow at the she-devil by the light of that revelation. Instead, he seemed suddenly even more interested. "Look... at worst, the demons will be temporarily weakened by internal struggle. A civil war on the enemy side is always a good thing, right? And at best, they may win, and we might wind up with a new hierarchy of Hell. One you could actually NEGOTIATE with. One that'd be willing to put an end to the invasions, the incursions, the possessions and the insidious dealings altogether. You and your lot have been fighting the demons for centuries, right? Killing them wherever they appear. And yet, what have you really accomplished? The war goes on. There are as many demons as ever. This is a slim, but real_chance to _end the threat of the demons forever!"

She found herself growing excited as she talked. She hadn't really thought it through like that until that moment... when she'd helped Kylaees bring down Agares and seize his fortress, it had been largely a matter of self-preservation. But she wasn't lying - the chance was there! Soon, the hierarchy wouldn't be able to ignore the 'Renegades' any longer - and at the same time, they'd draw the attention of powerful people like the demosphinx and the Bloody Lady. Female demons who saw them as kindred spirits, and had perhaps simply given up on changing the way of things until then - or just minor powers of whatever gender who saw a viable rebellion as a chance to increase their personal power. Her actions would send tremors through Hell that would not soon die out!

Regardless, the demon hunter was finally convinced, and quickly made rounds among his fellows, soon winning their agreement too. Some with a shrug of whatever-I-don't-really-care, others with a laughing hell-yeah-that's-perfect, and a few with a reluctant sigh of fine-not-like-I-have-a-better-idea. The timing couldn't have been better. Demons were emerging from the portal... hesitantly, watchfully, worried about their leader, who had jumped into the mysterious gateway rather than let any of her soldiers walk where she_did not dare tread. They were happy to see that she was well, ecstatic to see that she'd gained further power by bringing down none other than _Legion, and understandably concerned that they were effectively surrounded by unhappy-looking demon hunters. But with the bulky, sideburn-adorned hellspawned demon hunter stepping forwards to greet them as if they were expected, any unfortunate misunderstandings were averted.

Soon after, the cultists were filing through the portal, four abreast. Much as Anitra had claimed, some of them were looking at it - and the she-demons waiting to receive them - with hopefulness and awe, while the eyes of others flickered around, filled with slow-burning panic and consternation. A few tried to make a run for it, only to be inevitably caught and thrown bodily through the portal. The Renegades would have a new batch of slaves, far more deserving than the sacrifices that were usually thrown into Hell alive, ready to be 'milked' of sensation in order to empower their forces - and lead to the 'birth' of many new demons from the previously impoverished land. They wouldn't necessarily be tortured to draw out pain and fear, either - the Renegades were quite willing to consider alternatives, and the fact that at least some of their new guests were downright_eager_ to join them offered new options. As did the fact that all the demons were female... yet capable of performing as male if necessary.

Anitra took the opportunity to confront a couple of the prisoners before they went through the portal. The Lucifex himself was among them - after Legion's death, he'd collapsed in despair, bereft of the will needed to summon up his remaining power. Now, at last, he looked every bit as old as he probably was. "Why'd you ally with Legion?" she asked him. "I mean, he was the one behind Sharanaman and his whole power-behind-the-throne shtick." The old man looked up at her, the hellfire long-since gone from his eyes. "What, I was supposed to take that personally? Legion is... _was_an archdevil. Of course he'd ally with whoever held true power. I was entirely unsurprised when he approached me, shortly after I'd seized it for myself. Legion has always been a patron of our order..." He trailed off there, his face hanging so pathetically that she almost had to feel sorry for him. She was sending him off to his death, she knew - there was no way he'd last long in the nether planes, regardless of how pleasantly the Renegades treated him. But hey, at least they'd probably enjoy the hopelessness radiating off of him in the meantime! Based on what she knew of the way they absorbed emotions, it'd probably make them all feel joyful and optimistic!

She also pulled Chabat out of the line. The once-haughty priestess had made a halfhearted attempt to fight it out near the end of the battle, but she'd been too weakened by her participation in the ritual to cause any real trouble before she was subdued. Various emotions chased one another across that scarred, pale face, but loathing outshone them all as she faced Anitra. "You were lying about that method for absorbing demonic essence from the start, weren't you?" she accused without preamble. Anitra just shrugged and nodded guilelessly. "Well, yeah, obviously. It actually DOES work, but there are certain preconditions I may have neglected to mention. Oh, and just in case you haven't figured it out yet - I also lied about how bad your rectal damage got. It's REALLY bad. Like,catastrophic. Would take a literal miracle to fix."

Chabat's face fell. She'd no doubt suspected as much, but been unwilling to fully accept the truth of it. Anitra gave her an insulting pat on the shoulder. "Really, considering that, you should be thanking me for sending you straight to Hell. There's no food down there, so you won't have to regularly experience the agonizing and humiliating experience that going to the loo would be up here. And for that matter, I'll be happy to put in a good word for you - secure some special treatment for you..." Renewed loathing warred with despair on her face, before it twisted itself into a kind of cold hatred. "I'm sure you will. I'm _not_sure what I ever did to earn such... 'special treatment' from you, though."

Anitra hesitated, then shrugged again. "Well, I suppose you DO deserve to know that much. You lured young women into being raped by demons and then killed by the resulting pregnancy. That whole deal. I find it... intensely distasteful. You probably aren't the only one here who've done that, but I only knew about it for sure in YOUR case, and I had some time on my hands, so... yeah." The stare she got was filled with more disbelief than anything else. "You...had some time on your hands?!" Anitra snorted. "Well, yeah. Not the best reason, maybe, but there you have it. Now get going - your new home awaits!" And so, Chabat disappeared through the portal too, muttering and shaking her head. Anitra was as good as her word, too, and dropped a few remarks with Kylaees to the effect that this one particular scar-faced cultist would greatly appreciate some regular, anal attention from some of the more heavily equipped she-demons. Or maybe the Juggernauts? They always _did_have an awful lot of energy to work off when there weren't any battles on... Kylaees narrowed her eyes in reply, glanced towards the portal where the cult-priestess had just disappeared, and then shrugged. "Well, if you say so... I'll see to it."

With those last details taken care of, she walked over to where Blake was standing, with Direza and Melora - who had finally dropped the demonic disguise - close at hand. Despite his telepathic reassurances, she wanted to make sure that he really hadn't suffered anything worse than a couple of bruises and one minor tear in this left wing when he smashed through the ceiling. On the way, though, she noticed that a number of the demon hunters - particularly ones with minor demonic traits of their own - were in deep conversation with those of Kylaees' lieutenants who had come through the portal to help manage that end of the prisoner transfer. Altering her route a bit, she perked her ears to try and overhear what they were talking about, curious by these unlikely match-ups.

If she'd been hoping for something lascivious - the demon hunters were mostly male, after all, and the newly arrived she-demons wore little to no clothing - she was disappointed. Instead, they seemed to be discussing the possibility of future exchanges similar to this one. Even with the central church and leadership of the Bloody Dawn Cult destroyed, demon worshipping obviously wouldn't just end. The cult's local chapters were arranged in decentralized cells, and the news of the raid would just cause them to go deep underground. Plus, there were other cults, smaller and less infamous, that might take advantage of the resulting power vacuum to expand and recruit new adherents from the ever-full ranks of the poor, foolish and desperate.

Dealing with cultists was thus a regular issue for demon hunters, and would continue to be so. And not all of them were happy about slaughtering human beings, however misguided, out of hand. They could be handed over to local authorities, of course, but those weren't always reliable, competent, or particularly fair. The idea of instead acting out some form of poetic justice by handing the cultists over to the very demons they worshiped seemed a fetching alternative... and, perhaps, they could acquire some useful resources in return. Hellforged steel was extremely handy for any demon hunter, after all, and many of them used various other things, such as demon blood or stored infernal essence, in their activities.

It certainly looked like the beginning of a beautiful friendship, Anitra thought to herself with a grin as she went to embrace Blake - and a regular source of sustenance for the Renegades. A potential future where Hell was not an enemy land locked in constant war with the World-Plane, but rather an inescapable prison for the worst criminals - as well as a valued trading partner - shone ahead. Not a terribly_likely_ future, that, but like she'd told the demon hunter, it was at least a possibility - and a better one than just fighting an eternal war year after year, decade after decade...

And if it DID happen, somehow... well, then she'd be able to say with honesty that she had accomplished a pretty damn heroic deed, if not through terribly heroic means. And that wasn't too bad.

Of course, that did remind her that she still needed to figure out if a hero really was what she wanted to be, and what the alternative really was if she didn't want to just return to killing and raping without a thought for others. All of that could wait, though. For now, she was reunited with her beloved Blake and her two friends, and the child she carried underneath her heart was, mostly, free of demonic corruption. It was time to return to the Dragon Utopia for some much needed rest and relaxation!

THE END

Indeed, I think anyone will agree that by now, Anitra deserves a vacation. And that's exactly what she'll get! Hence, coming up next is... Life Is A Beach! Yes, that's right, it's finally happening - DragonRider gets a Beach Episode... what's next? A Christmas Special?