Worthy Core - Chapter 117

Hey all, a quick schedule update for you tonight! I'm once again brushing the minimum acceptable size for my chapter stockpile, so I'll be dropping back to two updates a week until it's recovered a bit (Tuesday and Fridays). This will probably take at least a month.

Thanks for reading!

The next morning, Doorman was attempting to peacefully doze off on the job a little when the air began speaking to him.

"Hey. Hey. Hey you."

Looking around as best as he can, given his complete lack of a neck, the guardian finds himself unable to discover the reason for the unusual chattiness of the mountain. "...Hey?"

"Hey! Whatcha doing?"

I'm...guarding the entrance to Worthy Dungeon! As I usually do. ...To whom am I speaking?"

With a sudden crackling sound, a tiny yellow lightning bolt hits the walkway before him from somewhere above. Standing up, the bolt moves in something approximating a bow. "It's me! Zappy!"

"Ah. Hello! ...Do I know you?"

"Ah, the dungeon crew didn't mention me? I came through the portal here like an hour ago, but you looked tired so I figured I'd do some exploring first. And I did that! Pretty nice mountain you got here. I'm looking forward to being neighbors!"

Doorman eyes the figure a little closer, and realizes he can vaguely make out the form of a humanoid shape, perhaps feminine, although only part of the woman's body is visible at any given time as electricity flickers from point to point. "Zappy, is it? Nice to meet you, I'm Doorman. You...say you'll be living out here? Did you find another cave?"

The woman laughs. "I came here to get away from the caves! You got sky up here, so much sky! Just what I needed!" Zappy raises her arms to the sky and in a sudden flash, she's gone. A few seconds later there's the sound of thunder and she's back, having apparently taken a quick trip to visit a nearby cloud. "Amazing! Does it rain up here much, I'd like to see that!"

"Did you just - that must have been a thousand feet you just traveled there, wasn't it?"

"Maybe! With a clear shot and so much air mana around here, that jump was easy! So, what is it you do around here?"

Clearing his throat, Doorman puts as much pride as he can into his response. "Why, I test the Challengers to the dungeon with my masterful riddles! Here we test intelligence and cleverness, not just skill at arms!"

Zappy leans forward, interested. "Oooh! Do you beat a lot of Challengers?"

Taking a moment, Doorman attempts to mentally sum up his victories. "...Indeed! ...Well. There were these children, this one time..."

"Oh? Hey, do me! Gimme a riddle!"

"Very well. Ahem...what is...a snail?"

The elemental stares at him for a moment, and then whines. "Hey, that one's too hard! Start me off with an easy one, okay!?"

"Ah, well, let me think. What is...your favorite color?"

Zappy stares at him for a while. "...Can I get three guesses?"

"If...if you need them, I suppose? This is just an example, after all..."

"Okay! Is it purple?"

"...It might be?"

Zappy cheers, waving her arms in the air. "Woo, got it first try! Go Zappy!"

"Well, I'm glad you liked it."

Zappy shoots back up to the rocky outcrop above Doorman's head where she'd been hiding before, and then dangles upside down so that she can rub his bald, wooden head. The sensation tingles a little, but not unpleasantly so. "Being neighbors with you is gonna be fun, Doorman! Gonna be cool hanging out with someone smart for once!"

Almost despite himself, a grin spreads across the door's face. "I'm looking forward to spending more time with you as well, Zappy. It could be nice to have a bit more company, now that I think of it..."

Finding herself shuddering slightly for unknown reasons, Xenia decides to distract herself for a time with one of her most common hobbies: annoying her floor bosses. Today Sincere is the lucky winner of her attentions, as the demon hears her knocking on his apartment door. "You may come in, Xenia! And thank you for knocking, this time."

Rather than actually open the door and walk inside, Xenia's avatar simply appears within the man's living room. "Ah, have I been bugging you? You know I wouldn't just pop in if you were having some private Sincere-time, yeah?"

"While getting used to your locally omniscient senses does take some getting used to, it is still preferable to observe at least the trappings of politeness, wouldn't you say? Is there something I can help you with?"

Xenia peers down at the paper Sincere's writing away on as he sits at his reading desk. "Just checking in. You getting learned-up on how to help out those fire elementals, like you said?"

The man shakes his head as he sets the notes aside. "Actually, I'm holding off on putting my own efforts into that task, at least for the moment. Right now, it's Lollyp that has some studying to do."

"Eh? Lollyp's helping you out with this?"

"Indeed." Reaching for a nearby bookcase, Sincere pulls out a tome labeled 'The Birth and Young Childhood of Elementals'. "With a copy of this, actually. You see, in some ways Lollyp is better suited for the task than I am - she is an Elementalist, after all."

Xenia takes the book and flips through it briefly, not paying it much attention. "But she needs to do some studying to get to your level?"

"Lollyp is an expert at manipulating elementally-aspected mana of most kinds, although she does prefer fire. Literally, I believe she would qualify for an Expert class at this point. However, she is military-trained. By which I mean her practical skills are almost entirely combat-oriented. Her knowledge of elementals only extends to some training she was given on how to kill them in a battle. I would very much like her assistance on the project, but first she needs to learn how to work with elementals rather than simply how to destroy them. That book is practically a beginner's guide, while she's working through that, I'm doing what I can to collect my knowledge on the sort of high-level elemental research which others have performed."

"Cool, cool." Xenia leans against the desk for a minute, flipping through the book and stopping to admire the illustrations. "Ooooh, baby earth elemental...wait, the scale says this baby's eight feet tall?"

"Elementals are born fully-formed, after all. Is there anything else I can help you with, today?"

Xenia sets the book aside, and after a moment she nods. "Actually, I'd kinda like some learning-up of my own. History, you know? Maybe of the personal kind, if you don't mind?"

Now looking a little more intrigued, Sincere leans back in his chair. "Well, I do have quite a bit of it. What specifically would you like to know?"

Xenia pulls up a chair of her own before continuing. "So...like a week back, when we had that 'test' of ours? You wouldn't have heard, you were a little dead at the time, but Cerise said you 'turned your back' on folks like her grandparents, back when the demons signed on with the Dragonlord. What was all that about? I mean, I'm willing to believe she was talking out of her ass as far as you're concerned."

The demon takes a deep breath before responding. "Well, that's a complicated question, but one worth answering. But before that, I think I need to explain a bit more of this world's history in general."

"Ehghh." Xenia clenches her teeth. "I was afraid you'd say something like that."

"And now you have fallen neatly into my trap. We've discussed a bit before about the Age of Warlocks, yes? And how I came to live on this plane?"

"Yeah. And...warlocks seem like they're not a thing anymore? I haven't seen any Warlock-class Challengers, at least."

Sincere nods. "It's a class that's illegal to train in, in every country that has laws, more or less. You see, in the early days, the first warlocks were quite...small-time, you could say. Even aside from the very early ones, who often got themselves killed quickly, at most a warlock might have a single captive demon, or two. And they would be captive in the most primitive of ways - traditional chains, physical punishments for disobedience, and so on."

This time Xenia winces for another reason. "Oof, that sounds bad. I've known warlock-types on some other worlds who don't need that kind of shit at all."

"Well, they didn't here either, after a time. As their spells improved, a single warlock became capable of enslaving, say, ten demons at a time without being torn to shreds, thanks to magical bindings and the like. And there's quite a bit you can do with ten demon slaves, considering most of our kinds are quite physically strong, adept with magic, or in some cases, both. Bodyguards, magical assistants...bedchamber companions, in many cases."

"Okay, I'm starting to get an idea of why people here don't like warlocks."

Sincere shakes his head. "Actually I haven't even gotten to the true reasons, yet. As I was saying, there's a lot you can do with ten slaves...but there's even more you can't do. You can guard your magical sanctum, gain a slight edge on competitors, but little more. But...when a single warlock is powerful enough to summon and bind a hundred? Two? Five? Then things change significantly."

Xenia tilts her head. "Okay, even the horniest asshole can't manage five hundred succubi. What would they do with them all?"

Sincere chuckles. "The 'nice' ones would simply destroy the local economy. Demon farmers, miners, and craftsmen would be put to work, and suddenly those who used to do such labor would find themselves destitute. The cruder ones would form small demon armies and become local warlords and tyrants - and then their ranks of slaves would often include more than just demons. Those were perhaps the middle years of the Age of Warlocks, before things got truly bad."

"Bad? How did it get worse than that?"

"It got worse when it became an enterprise of nations. Some would be those aforementioned warlords, expanding their power base, but more often it was existing governments, deciding they needed to keep up in the demons arms race. A powerful nation might employ a thousand warlocks, and maintain slave forces of hundreds of thousands of demons."

Xenia's eyes grow a little wide. "Holy shit. The geography knowledge I've picked up here...the populations here don't even seem that big, in most places."

"Indeed, the populations weren't sustainable. Even while most demons don't need much in the way of...mundane sustenance, we do still have our needs. No, the armies were disposable. Send forth fifty thousand demons in an invasion, and if none survived, then that would only be a bonus." As Xenia continues to stare, Sincere continues. "Of course, the casualties were far from entirely consisting of demons. Soldiers and specialists of other species were required - especially if one side did not use warlocks - and civilian casualties were inevitable as well." The man's face turns particularly grim. "As much as I hate to say it, when the demon armies were set loose upon villages and towns, few attempted to restrain themselves from taking the chance to enact their vengeance, even if their targets weren't the ones holding their chains. And some demons do thrive on carnage and violence, and other...excesses."

"Fuck, Sincere. That sounds like a nightmare."

He nods. "Fortunately, as an Arcane demon, I was spared that, although I was occasionally tasked with research into various martial magics. Still, almost nowhere was entirely untouched from the wars of the age. Of course, with all things, eventually a counter-reaction was provoked."

Xenia chuckles. "You mean somebody got pissed and bashed in some heads."

Despite himself, Sincere chuckles along. "More or less that, I suppose. A conspiracy was formed to stop the usage of summoned demons, the Circle of Broken Chains. Contained nobility, mages, clerics of certain churches, freed demons, and even some warlocks who limited themselves to consensual summonings - which are a thing, if exceedingly rare in historical terms. They started with assassinations of particularly notable warlocks, but they eventually changed everything almost overnight, in one day, when they managed a great Work. A ritual spell, crafted and performed by dozens of experts, and boosted by a dozen deities who were worried things were heading towards an extinction event. For fifty years, the magic used in demon summonings was sabotaged. Anyone who attempted to cast such magic would be torn apart by their own spell. Furthermore, nearly all of the spells binding summoned demons were broken. There's many ways to do such a thing, but the process had been...standardized such that two or three such spells accounted for nearly all of my kind kept as slaves."

"Wooof, changing the rules of magic's a big deal, for sure. And...I'm guessing there was a real reckoning from all those free demons, huh?"

This time Sincere's grin grows wide, though it only lasts for a brief moment. "It's estimated that nine out of ten warlocks died within the week. Unfortunately...it far from solved every problem. Many demons didn't reserve their vengeance for just the warlocks themselves, and there were now entire armies roaming free, attempting to find security and supplies...which mostly required the taking of it from others. And in other places, where demons were few, many were hunted down out of fear. In some cases, genocide became the national policy of terrified rulers."

Unsure what to say, Xenia reaches out and takes Sincere's hand in her own. "And you made it through all that, huh?"

"There were eventually perhaps three or four major groupings of demons in the world, after survivors banded together into larger and larger bodies. However, most of those were the remnants of armies, made up of behemoths and fiends, and those of other types who had been trained for war. They wanted nothing other than to fight until they could fight no more...and so they did. The strongest of those lasted perhaps twenty years. Ours, the largest group, was largely non-combatants or those tired of fighting...and I must admit, we were perhaps three quarters succubi and incubi by that point. We'd claimed a small port city, living in some unease with the other races populating it, but we doubted we would last as a citystate surrounded by so many enemies. So when the New Continent was discovered, and those seeking to try something new rather than rebuild the old began their colonization fleets, we put everything we had into building one of our own."

"Huh. And you went with them? Or where did this 'turn your back' thing happen?"

Sincere sighs. "I did travel here with the others, of course. While some demon communities yet remain on the Old Continents, they are few in number, and often hidden. However...when the Dragonlord made their offer, of service and protection, I saw things differently than many of my kin. The threats of enslavement for those who opposed them, in particular, and of course those threats eventually became reality for the Valleyland peoples. For many of my kin, it was enough for them that they not be the slaves, that they not be the ones under the yoke of chain and whip. I...I struggle to condemn them for their selfishness, even now, I suppose. For those of my generation, for nearly all of them, their suffering was very real and very personal. As a mage's assistant, I had an extremely comfortable life compared to most. Compared to those who were used as tools upon the battlefield and bedchamber."

Xenia nods as she prods him on. "But..."

"But that only continues the cycle, of course. The orcs and minotaurs were turned into soldier-slaves, just as we had been! The driders were forced to perform martial magical research, just as I myself had been! They didn't suffer quite as much as we had, but...I will not get into a debate of degree, not in these sorts of matters. It wasn't just. So, when the deal was made, and the demons joined the Dragonlord's Domain, I...walked away. And with few exceptions, I have been a traveler ever since."

Xenia nods, then stops and moves forward to grab Sincere in a tight hug instead. The demon stiffens a little, clearly uncertain how to react, but Xenia relents and releases him a few moments later. "Yeah...I can understand Cerise being proud that demons have had the chance to build something for themselves here, given all they had to go through to get there. But I won't let her talk shit about you next time, trust me. I'd like to think I'd do the same in your shoes."

The man grins again. "And that is why I'm far happier to work in your service than I would have been for the Dragonlord. Now, has your curiosity been sated, or shall I dig up one of my other lectures on world history?"

The dungeon master only manages most of a sentence before suddenly vanishing. "Just remembered I left the dungeon oven on -!"

Shaking his head, Sincere chuckles one more time. "Oh, if only my old friends could see me now..."

Announcement Hey all, a quick schedule update for you tonight! I'm once again brushing the minimum acceptable size for my chapter stockpile, so I'll be dropping back to two updates a week until it's recovered a bit Tuesday and Fridays. This will probably take at least a month. Thanks for reading! The next morning, Doorman was attempting to peacefully doze off on the job a little when the air began speaking to him. "Hey. Hey. Hey you." Looking around as best as he can, given his complete lack of a neck, the guardian finds himself unable to discover the reason for the unusual chattiness of the mountain. "...Hey?" "Hey! Whatcha doing?" I'm...guarding the entrance to Worthy Dungeon! As I usually do. ...To whom am I speaking?" With a sudden crackling sound, a tiny yellow lightning bolt hits the walkway before him from somewhere above. Standing up, the bolt moves in something approximating a bow. "It's me! Zappy!" "Ah. Hello! ...Do I know you?" "Ah, the dungeon crew didn't mention me? I came through the portal here like an hour ago, but you looked tired so I figured I'd do some exploring first. And I did that! Pretty nice mountain you got here. I'm looking forward to being neighbors!" Doorman eyes the figure a little closer, and realizes he can vaguely make out the form of a humanoid shape, perhaps feminine, although only part of the woman's body is visible at any given time as electricity flickers from point to point. "Zappy, is it? Nice to meet you, I'm Doorman. You...say you'll be living out here? Did you find another cave?" The woman laughs. "I came here to get away from the caves! You got sky up here, so much sky! Just what I needed!" Zappy raises her arms to the sky and in a sudden flash, she's gone. A few seconds later there's the sound of thunder and she's back, having apparently taken a quick trip to visit a nearby cloud. "Amazing! Does it rain up here much, I'd like to see that!" "Did you just - that must have been a thousand feet you just traveled there, wasn't it?" "Maybe! With a clear shot and so much air mana around here, that jump was easy! So, what is it you do around here?" Clearing his throat, Doorman puts as much pride as he can into his response. "Why, I test the Challengers to the dungeon with my masterful riddles! Here we test intelligence and cleverness, not just skill at arms!" Zappy leans forward, interested. "Oooh! Do you beat a lot of Challengers?" Taking a moment, Doorman attempts to mentally sum up his victories. "...Indeed! ...Well. There were these children, this one time..." "Oh? Hey, do me! Gimme a riddle!" "Very well. Ahem...what is...a snail?" The elemental stares at him for a moment, and then whines. "Hey, that one's too hard! Start me off with an easy one, okay!?" "Ah, well, let me think. What is...your favorite color?" Zappy stares at him for a while. "...Can I get three guesses?" "If...if you need them, I suppose? This is just an example, after all..." "Okay! Is it purple?" "...It might be?" Zappy cheers, waving her arms in the air. "Woo, got it first try! Go Zappy!" "Well, I'm glad you liked it." Zappy shoots back up to the rocky outcrop above Doorman's head where she'd been hiding before, and then dangles upside down so that she can rub his bald, wooden head. The sensation tingles a little, but not unpleasantly so. "Being neighbors with you is gonna be fun, Doorman! Gonna be cool hanging out with someone smart for once!" Almost despite himself, a grin spreads across the door's face. "I'm looking forward to spending more time with you as well, Zappy. It could be nice to have a bit more company, now that I think of it..." Finding herself shuddering slightly for unknown reasons, Xenia decides to distract herself for a time with one of her most common hobbies: annoying her floor bosses. Today Sincere is the lucky winner of her attentions, as the demon hears her knocking on his apartment door. "You may come in, Xenia! And thank you for knocking, this time." Rather than actually open the door and walk inside, Xenia's avatar simply appears within the man's living room. "Ah, have I been bugging you? You know I wouldn't just pop in if you were having some private Sincere-time, yeah?" "While getting used to your locally omniscient senses does take some getting used to, it is still preferable to observe at least the trappings of politeness, wouldn't you say? Is there something I can help you with?" Xenia peers down at the paper Sincere's writing away on as he sits at his reading desk. "Just checking in. You getting learned-up on how to help out those fire elementals, like you said?" The man shakes his head as he sets the notes aside. "Actually, I'm holding off on putting my own efforts into that task, at least for the moment. Right now, it's Lollyp that has some studying to do." "Eh? Lollyp's helping you out with this?" "Indeed." Reaching for a nearby bookcase, Sincere pulls out a tome labeled 'The Birth and Young Childhood of Elementals'. "With a copy of this, actually. You see, in some ways Lollyp is better suited for the task than I am - she is an Elementalist, after all." Xenia takes the book and flips through it briefly, not paying it much attention. "But she needs to do some studying to get to your level?" "Lollyp is an expert at manipulating elementally-aspected mana of most kinds, although she does prefer fire. Literally, I believe she would qualify for an Expert class at this point. However, she is military-trained. By which I mean her practical skills are almost entirely combat-oriented. Her knowledge of elementals only extends to some training she was given on how to kill them in a battle. I would very much like her assistance on the project, but first she needs to learn how to work with elementals rather than simply how to destroy them. That book is practically a beginner's guide, while she's working through that, I'm doing what I can to collect my knowledge on the sort of high-level elemental research which others have performed." "Cool, cool." Xenia leans against the desk for a minute, flipping through the book and stopping to admire the illustrations. "Ooooh, baby earth elemental...wait, the scale says this baby's eight feet tall?" "Elementals are born fully-formed, after all. Is there anything else I can help you with, today?" Xenia sets the book aside, and after a moment she nods. "Actually, I'd kinda like some learning-up of my own. History, you know? Maybe of the personal kind, if you don't mind?" Now looking a little more intrigued, Sincere leans back in his chair. "Well, I do have quite a bit of it. What specifically would you like to know?" Xenia pulls up a chair of her own before continuing. "So...like a week back, when we had that 'test' of ours? You wouldn't have heard, you were a little dead at the time, but Cerise said you 'turned your back' on folks like her grandparents, back when the demons signed on with the Dragonlord. What was all that about? I mean, I'm willing to believe she was talking out of her ass as far as you're concerned." The demon takes a deep breath before responding. "Well, that's a complicated question, but one worth answering. But before that, I think I need to explain a bit more of this world's history in general." "Ehghh." Xenia clenches her teeth. "I was afraid you'd say something like that." "And now you have fallen neatly into my trap. We've discussed a bit before about the Age of Warlocks, yes? And how I came to live on this plane?" "Yeah. And...warlocks seem like they're not a thing anymore? I haven't seen any Warlock-class Challengers, at least." Sincere nods. "It's a class that's illegal to train in, in every country that has laws, more or less. You see, in the early days, the first warlocks were quite...small-time, you could say. Even aside from the very early ones, who often got themselves killed quickly, at most a warlock might have a single captive demon, or two. And they would be captive in the most primitive of ways - traditional chains, physical punishments for disobedience, and so on." This time Xenia winces for another reason. "Oof, that sounds bad. I've known warlock-types on some other worlds who don't need that kind of shit at all." "Well, they didn't here either, after a time. As their spells improved, a single warlock became capable of enslaving, say, ten demons at a time without being torn to shreds, thanks to magical bindings and the like. And there's quite a bit you can do with ten demon slaves, considering most of our kinds are quite physically strong, adept with magic, or in some cases, both. Bodyguards, magical assistants...bedchamber companions, in many cases." "Okay, I'm starting to get an idea of why people here don't like warlocks." Sincere shakes his head. "Actually I haven't even gotten to the true reasons, yet. As I was saying, there's a lot you can do with ten slaves...but there's even more you can't do. You can guard your magical sanctum, gain a slight edge on competitors, but little more. But...when a single warlock is powerful enough to summon and bind a hundred? Two? Five? Then things change significantly." Xenia tilts her head. "Okay, even the horniest asshole can't manage five hundred succubi. What would they do with them all?" Sincere chuckles. "The 'nice' ones would simply destroy the local economy. Demon farmers, miners, and craftsmen would be put to work, and suddenly those who used to do such labor would find themselves destitute. The cruder ones would form small demon armies and become local warlords and tyrants - and then their ranks of slaves would often include more than just demons. Those were perhaps the middle years of the Age of Warlocks, before things got truly bad." "Bad? How did it get worse than that?" "It got worse when it became an enterprise of nations. Some would be those aforementioned warlords, expanding their power base, but more often it was existing governments, deciding they needed to keep up in the demons arms race. A powerful nation might employ a thousand warlocks, and maintain slave forces of hundreds of thousands of demons." Xenia's eyes grow a little wide. "Holy shit. The geography knowledge I've picked up here...the populations here don't even seem that big, in most places." "Indeed, the populations weren't sustainable. Even while most demons don't need much in the way of...mundane sustenance, we do still have our needs. No, the armies were disposable. Send forth fifty thousand demons in an invasion, and if none survived, then that would only be a bonus." As Xenia continues to stare, Sincere continues. "Of course, the casualties were far from entirely consisting of demons. Soldiers and specialists of other species were required - especially if one side did not use warlocks - and civilian casualties were inevitable as well." The man's face turns particularly grim. "As much as I hate to say it, when the demon armies were set loose upon villages and towns, few attempted to restrain themselves from taking the chance to enact their vengeance, even if their targets weren't the ones holding their chains. And some demons do thrive on carnage and violence, and other...excesses." "Fuck, Sincere. That sounds like a nightmare." He nods. "Fortunately, as an Arcane demon, I was spared that, although I was occasionally tasked with research into various martial magics. Still, almost nowhere was entirely untouched from the wars of the age. Of course, with all things, eventually a counter-reaction was provoked." Xenia chuckles. "You mean somebody got pissed and bashed in some heads." Despite himself, Sincere chuckles along. "More or less that, I suppose. A conspiracy was formed to stop the usage of summoned demons, the Circle of Broken Chains. Contained nobility, mages, clerics of certain churches, freed demons, and even some warlocks who limited themselves to consensual summonings - which are a thing, if exceedingly rare in historical terms. They started with assassinations of particularly notable warlocks, but they eventually changed everything almost overnight, in one day, when they managed a great Work. A ritual spell, crafted and performed by dozens of experts, and boosted by a dozen deities who were worried things were heading towards an extinction event. For fifty years, the magic used in demon summonings was sabotaged. Anyone who attempted to cast such magic would be torn apart by their own spell. Furthermore, nearly all of the spells binding summoned demons were broken. There's many ways to do such a thing, but the process had been...standardized such that two or three such spells accounted for nearly all of my kind kept as slaves." "Wooof, changing the rules of magic's a big deal, for sure. And...I'm guessing there was a real reckoning from all those free demons, huh?" This time Sincere's grin grows wide, though it only lasts for a brief moment. "It's estimated that nine out of ten warlocks died within the week. Unfortunately...it far from solved every problem. Many demons didn't reserve their vengeance for just the warlocks themselves, and there were now entire armies roaming free, attempting to find security and supplies...which mostly required the taking of it from others. And in other places, where demons were few, many were hunted down out of fear. In some cases, genocide became the national policy of terrified rulers." Unsure what to say, Xenia reaches out and takes Sincere's hand in her own. "And you made it through all that, huh?" "There were eventually perhaps three or four major groupings of demons in the world, after survivors banded together into larger and larger bodies. However, most of those were the remnants of armies, made up of behemoths and fiends, and those of other types who had been trained for war. They wanted nothing other than to fight until they could fight no more...and so they did. The strongest of those lasted perhaps twenty years. Ours, the largest group, was largely non-combatants or those tired of fighting...and I must admit, we were perhaps three quarters succubi and incubi by that point. We'd claimed a small port city, living in some unease with the other races populating it, but we doubted we would last as a citystate surrounded by so many enemies. So when the New Continent was discovered, and those seeking to try something new rather than rebuild the old began their colonization fleets, we put everything we had into building one of our own." "Huh. And you went with them? Or where did this 'turn your back' thing happen?" Sincere sighs. "I did travel here with the others, of course. While some demon communities yet remain on the Old Continents, they are few in number, and often hidden. However...when the Dragonlord made their offer, of service and protection, I saw things differently than many of my kin. The threats of enslavement for those who opposed them, in particular, and of course those threats eventually became reality for the Valleyland peoples. For many of my kin, it was enough for them that they not be the slaves, that they not be the ones under the yoke of chain and whip. I...I struggle to condemn them for their selfishness, even now, I suppose. For those of my generation, for nearly all of them, their suffering was very real and very personal. As a mage's assistant, I had an extremely comfortable life compared to most. Compared to those who were used as tools upon the battlefield and bedchamber." Xenia nods as she prods him on. "But..." "But that only continues the cycle, of course. The orcs and minotaurs were turned into soldier-slaves, just as we had been! The driders were forced to perform martial magical research, just as I myself had been! They didn't suffer quite as much as we had, but...I will not get into a debate of degree, not in these sorts of matters. It wasn't just. So, when the deal was made, and the demons joined the Dragonlord's Domain, I...walked away. And with few exceptions, I have been a traveler ever since." Xenia nods, then stops and moves forward to grab Sincere in a tight hug instead. The demon stiffens a little, clearly uncertain how to react, but Xenia relents and releases him a few moments later. "Yeah...I can understand Cerise being proud that demons have had the chance to build something for themselves here, given all they had to go through to get there. But I won't let her talk shit about you next time, trust me. I'd like to think I'd do the same in your shoes." The man grins again. "And that is why I'm far happier to work in your service than I would have been for the Dragonlord. Now, has your curiosity been sated, or shall I dig up one of my other lectures on world history?" The dungeon master only manages most of a sentence before suddenly vanishing. "Just remembered I left the dungeon oven on -!" Shaking his head, Sincere chuckles one more time. "Oh, if only my old friends could see me now..."