Morning—if that concept even applied to a dark cave in a dark demonic world—began for me with a sweetly snoring girl who had occupied my arm, pressing it firmly between her soft mounds and resting her head on my shoulder. And yes, we were both naked, so I could easily appreciate the texture of the beautiful demoness. There were no blankets either, but that didn't bother me at all. A pleasant languor rolled through my body, reminding me of the ten hours of passionate sex. It had been good. Very, very good.
"Mmm?" Raven stretched, opening her eyes. And yes, she was in her "intermediate form," if you could call it that: red skin, but violet eyes and only one pair.
"Good morning," I smiled at the pampered beauty.
"H-hello," she went from "relaxed nega" to "panic-panic-everything is lost" in two-tenths of a second. Not bad. A burst of energy included.
"How are you feeling?" I couldn't resist and ran my hand over her slender waist.
"G-good..." she blushed even more. "Oh... sorry... I lost control yesterday... I'm used to fighting anger and the urge to destroy, but here... Are you okay?"
"Okay?" I blinked.
"Yeah... I lost it... I... couldn't control myself at all... Did I hurt you?"
"Are you joking? That was the best night of my life," I gave in to the urge and caught her lips in a kiss—unlike humans, Raven and I had no issues with morning breath.
"B-but..." she tensely didn't respond to the kiss, murmuring, "my demonic half..."
"Turned out to be a very hot girl."
"It was madness. Emotions took over me so strongly. I didn't think about anything but pleasure. I didn't even think about stopping," she babbled with panicked notes, but I stopped her, pressing my index finger to her scarlet lips.
"It's okay. That was you. Not a monster, not a beast, just feelings... And also," taking advantage of our position, I rolled over, pinning the girl beneath me, "I'd really like a continuation..." My lips began kissing an interesting spot on her neck again.
"A-a-ah," she arched slightly, offering her body to my lips. And... began to caress me in return—much more confidently than yesterday. Well, a good start to a good morning.
Later
After fooling around to our heart's content, we finally pulled away from each other. Damn, it was easy to get addicted to this. What's more, I found myself in a teenage body with endless stamina, which had access to something sweet. And not just any sweetness with a random woman, but sweetness with someone I loved without reservation, someone with whom I had many positive memories over the years. In such a configuration, one could only thank Kryptonian brains and a more mature consciousness for not being completely knocked out. Otherwise, we could have really had a sex marathon for a week. Or two. Or a month—a normal girl would get tired quickly, and she'd get sore, but a half-demon, if she had any limits, were far from obvious. Moreover, her stamina and greed for sex were unnatural given her physical strength, which, if it differed from that of an ordinary person, was very insignificant, especially from a Kryptonian's perspective. And, apparently, it was the lust that was also present between us and somehow affected Raven.
The question wasn't that she, being a virgin, quickly "got into it" and even faster learned what and how to do—it wasn't complicated. The thing was, my girl turned out to be not just very passionate, she... clearly drew some kind of energy from what was happening. Frankly, even the first time it became clear that she would have simply worn out an ordinary person—no ordinary person could withstand the pace she set and last ten hours without breaks. At the same time, she didn't collapse from exhaustion; she was simply satisfied. And as she became more corrupted, it became noticeable that her physical strength also increased—there, in a fit of passion, we managed to tear the skins of the Tal'vaskhan in a couple of places. Yes, after processing, they lose some strength, but only some! And we're talking about guys who easily take a "soul punch" from a Kryptonian, a meeting with a rock that the rock itself can't withstand, and new blows from a Kryptonian! In general, a happy personal life without the need to restrain herself, it seemed, a sorceress could only lead with another half-demon or a strong Kryptonian guy, but someone less enduring would simply not satisfy her, exhausted and beginning to beg for mercy when she had just gotten into the swing of things.
"Oh, what are you doing to me..." perhaps there should have been reproach there. Or indignation. But it was said in too satisfied a voice.
"I think we should get dressed, otherwise I can't vouch for myself," I honestly warned the beauty. And that was a feat!
"Y-yeah," the sorceress agreed. "And we have a lot to do..."
"Right," we agreed and nodded, "we need to keep learning magic."
"Right, magic," the girl nodded, sitting down on the bed. "And we need to use reagents, they weren't replenished for nothing..."
In short, with some difficulty, we returned to a normal rhythm, although we felt a certain awkwardness at first. And we couldn't help but discuss what had happened "with a cool head." No, Raven didn't regret spending the night with me, but the fact that she had "lost it" didn't please her. And she needed to control and discipline herself. But... she, like me, was a very enduring young girl who had gotten her hands on something sweet with a guy she liked. And so she really wanted to repeat the experience again and again. And the fact that her "breakdown" definitely wouldn't harm me, which she understood perfectly, only made the temptation stronger. But this contradicted everything she had been taught... In general, the girl was confused and conflicted. Something dark, trollish, and lewd inside me almost screamed to suggest "bondage games," which could "discipline" the innocent girl well, but that was already too much. Yes, I wouldn't mind trying all sorts of things with this beauty, but Raven was right—it wasn't worth starting too abruptly. So we gradually returned to the "work routine," where she passed on various subtleties of the sorcerous art to me, and I mastered and tested them. Although from time to time we still interrupted ourselves for a kiss or two. And in the "evening," we didn't deny ourselves intimacy.
So the days flowed, gradually weaving into weeks and months, until one day space trembled from a powerful wave of magical disturbance. Something was brewing in the demonic dimension, and it would be very good to find out what exactly.
There were two ways to find out: look for ourselves, using concealment, as Raven had done when she encountered an atypical migration of all sorts of demonic creatures caused by my showdowns with said demonic creatures; the second option was "capturing a tongue." No, it implied "asking someone in the know," but in demonic realities, mutual assistance, "sharing information," and other acts of helping one's neighbor weren't very popular. So yes, "capture and interrogate." Or come up with some kind of "search and reconnaissance" ritual. In short, one way or another, we had to crawl out of our cozy little cave and see what was what. So we did.
"Well, now the outside seems even less cozy to me than before," our cave with Raven had begun to feel not like home, but something pleasant and even comfortable.
"I agree," the girl responded. But the job had to be done, so, flying a little away from our shelter, we got to work. "First, let's see what's happening with the Power Points..."
The next few hours were spent drawing various sigils, collecting data, and analyzing it. The result was... interesting. Apparently, we had an invasion on our hands. Not in the sense that Trigon had found a way to invade someone else's world and burn it to the ground, but that someone had come to him with a "courtesy visit." Or rather, they intended to come, while somehow combining... um, demonic plans, which, in fact, led to the anomalies we felt—the "system calibration," let's call it that, gave off all sorts of mana surges, changes in the laws of physics, and other fun that twisted the already not-too-stable reality of Hell even more.
"An invasion? But didn't you say that was suicide?" I asked my friend.
"When some lone individual or even a small squad tries to break in—yes, but when it's led by another Archdemon, things get... complicated..." And although the lady's face didn't show strong emotions now, rather the mask of indifference had settled on it again, her emotional tension was almost palpable.
"Are you saying there's a war between Archdemons brewing?" The prospect, frankly, didn't bring joy. Because forces could clash there that would cause constant Exterminatus in the dimension. And my life had only just begun to get better!
"The 'War of Archdemons' has been going on constantly for more than a thousand years," the sorceress enlightened me. We hadn't discussed this point before—there was enough to do—but as a rule, it was more of a "redistribution of spheres of influence" than actual hostilities. But sometimes... it happened.
"Who's attacking, at least?"
"From what I could understand, the invasion is coming from Belial. He's an old and experienced Archdemon; Trigon has existed several times less than him."
"Belial?... As in, almost like Velial?" I recalled the name of the freak who had tried to take over my body.
"I think Trigon named one of his sons that to assert himself," Raven answered seriously, without changing her expression.
"What does this invasion threaten us with?" I asked the pressing question.
"It's hard to say," my interlocutor thoughtfully pursed her lips. "There will definitely be clashes between 'champions' and 'chosen ones' of the demonic lords."
"Won't they go clean each other's faces?" I asked directly.
"Unlikely," she shook her head, "too costly, too risky. It's easier, strangely enough, to agree on 'rules.' Of course, this doesn't guarantee fair play, but it won't be completely out of this world."
"Hmm... Can you give an example?" I thought I understood what was being discussed. A kind of "proxy war," where big guys resolve their contradictions by smashing the foreheads of "junior partners," but how the preparation for the invasion of foreign demons on Trigon's lands fit into this, I didn't understand.
"An example..." Raven thought. "For example, you can agree on a 'duel of champions,' that is, your 'chosen ones,' 'proxies-offspring,'" here the sorceress grimaced, "or some 'contractors.' Only their quality can vary greatly. Some soul-sold demon-working sorcerer, even if an Archdemon personally empowers and supports him, can do little against some demigod working for another Archdemon. Unless, of course, he hasn't been bribed, poisoned, cursed, or otherwise limited and weakened before the fight. That's how it all works," she spread her hands. "Don't ask for details, nuances—I myself am very poorly versed in this."
"Okay," I sighed, "but how does this relate to the invasion?"
"Well," Raven nervously stroked her chin, "sometimes the lower and not-so-highly-ranked demons in the hierarchy need to let off steam... or there are too many of them. They can't enter the normal world, but another demonic one—quite. A wave like that will fly in, cut down and devour crowds here, but it won't be able to take root and will retreat. Those who survive on both sides will become stronger. And new lower ones will soon multiply again. Even the Higher Demons don't participate much in this, unless the conflict happens on their territory. Archdemons have no reason to interfere at all. But..." the sorceress fell silent, beginning to nervously pace back and forth and think intently.
"But what?" I urged my lady.
"But such events still attract interest... attention. Something like gladiator fights. Only much more cruelty, meaningless bloodlust, and... scale."
"And something tells me you didn't just get thoughtful..."
"Yes... but... not here. We're going back!" And we flew back.
After returning to our cave and applying additional concealment and protective spells, the girl decided to share her thoughts with me. And they were...
"...that is," I rubbed the bridge of my nose, "let's go over it again... You're suggesting we wait for the commotion, take advantage of the fact that the biggest asshole in this Plane of Reality will be slightly distracted by watching the local version of football, and... break into his library to steal it?"
"For some reason, in your version, it doesn't sound very appealing..." the sorceress grumbled discontentedly. "But... yes."
"You're serious?"
"... "
"Damn, you're serious," I sighed.
"I can do it all alone..." she bristled. "Trigon won't harm me..."
"And don't even think about it! I won't leave you and certainly won't let you 'visit' that freak alone. But we need a plan!"
"A plan?"
"Yes, a plan. First, explain what's so urgent that you need from the Archdemon's library? Are you even sure there's a library there?"
"I'm sure, I've been there," Raven nodded, "and spent quite a lot of time there, so I know it well. And we need the section on spatial magic. Interworld portals."
"... " Now it was my turn to be silent. What could I say if I myself wanted to get out of this "wonderful place" very, very much, having spent less than a year here, and with a gorgeous girl and a purpose? How strong was this desire in Raven, who before our meeting had sat alone in a cave and fought with demonic scum? "Okay... suppose we get the necessary materials. How quickly will they be missed?"
"I don't know... Too many factors can influence that. If we're lucky, no one will know about us at all; if not... that we're breaking into the library will be known before we even get there."
"Wonderful..." The idea of "we'll figure out the necessary spells ourselves" seemed more and more attractive to me. Even considering that in magic I was still a half-baked amateur, and Raven spent her time not on research, but on teaching me. "How much time will you need to do everything and cast the spell?"
"Reading the spell formula... a few minutes... at best. Then performing the sorcery—that's seconds."
"And if you don't understand something in the formula, then figuring it out there won't take an hour, if not months, right?" In response, the girl just looked away. And nodded. "Bad. We need to prepare," that she wouldn't back down was obvious. Theoretically, I could persuade her, but that would make her unhappy, and when would another chance come? If it came at all...
"I agree, to work out and improve concealment spells... Maybe organize some kind of noise to distract attention, even if briefly..." It seemed the girl didn't want to risk "introducing the guy to her father" and began to think of something to occupy me—just in case. Because I was sure that this "distraction" would be proposed to me.
"That's also needed, but mainly not that," I shook my head negatively.
"Not that? Then what?"
"Two options: either we learn to extend my acceleration power to you, or we teach me the necessary basics to open such a portal. At full acceleration, a second can stretch for me not into a week of subjective time, but definitely into a couple of hours. This will increase our chances of completing everything before the enemies react."
"Hmm..." Raven thought. "Yes, you're right," that's what I especially liked about her (apart from other undeniable virtues)—Common Sense and Logic. She understood the risks and immediately seized the opportunity to avoid them.
"How much time do we have to prepare?"
"I don't know exactly. While the concentration of alien energies is low. No less than two weeks, but no more than a month and a half."
"Then let's not waste time."
"Yes," she agreed, "let's begin," and after a wave of the sorceress's hand, an impressive-looking folio landed on the table in front of us. "I'll start explaining the ritual basics of spatial magic, and you—listen, remember, and... try to enter your acceleration together with me."
"Uh-huh," I sat down next to my lady and, embracing her, tried both to stretch my aura to protect her (which, in principle, wasn't difficult, otherwise how would Supes carry people in flight, not to mention landing airplanes by the tail) and to "switch to acceleration," the possibility of which I could only theorize about. In the sense that a Kryptonian also accelerates through the aura, and since this aura can be expanded... In short, I hoped it would work like some kind of conditional "bubble" with its own flow of time, weakly correlating with what reigned "outside." True, this was just an assumption, and I had no idea how to implement it in practice, but... we'll try! It would also be nice to sit Raven on my lap, because it's more pleasant to listen that way, and it's more convenient to envelop her with the aura, but the "damage to concentration" would be quite significant. So let's not test the girl's endurance (and my own) once again and focus on studying—there's little time, and there's still a lot to do!
Some Time Later
If before I thought I was studying quite intensively and a lot, now I realized how mistaken I was. Before, it was like a warm-up. And even then, mostly because I couldn't properly control my magic. Now I still couldn't, if judged by the efforts of full-fledged experienced and strong mages, but at least there was some progress. But where there was no progress was with acceleration. No, I accelerated myself without problems, and I even learned to spread my aura over the girl without difficulty, but... that was it. The aura enveloped Raven, protected her body from physical overloads, but the girl showed no signs of acceleration, no matter how hard I tried. In general, either I was doing something wrong, or the mechanism of Kryptonian acceleration was much more complex and required some other "part of the body" of said Kryptonian to work: brains, nerve tissue, or coccyx, it didn't matter. What mattered was that it didn't work! We had to go with "Plan B," that is, learn myself. And this... this was fucking insane, I had no other words.
Can you imagine how much you need to learn to go from "I'm drawing my first rituals at the level of wiring lighting and light heating" to "I'm opening an interworld portal while escaping from an enraged Archdemon who's just had his favorite daughter stolen from under his nose"?! And all this with the calculation that we have two weeks for everything?!
You can't imagine!
And I couldn't imagine!
But Raven could. And she naturally tortured me in ways that not even demon executioners could dream of. We had to quickly abandon lectures—they were too slow and ineffective. So I read all her tomes at accelerated speed. Then, also at accelerated speed, I thought about and figured out what I didn't understand. I came out—clarified with her. Went back in, reread, absorbed. Came out, took a task to master this or that technique. Went back into acceleration. Did it. Failed. Peeled myself off the wall, came out of acceleration again, and asked the girl where I screwed up. Got explanations. Accelerated again and redid it.
Very quickly, I had to "move out," because I was sturdy and adaptive, and the more I blew myself up with sorcery, the more resistant to it I became, but our dwelling couldn't boast the same, nor could Raven herself. So to avoid risks to my lady and our property, it was easier for me to go somewhere "to the open spaces"—there, whoever I blew up, it wouldn't be a pity.
Gradually, progress was made, and I improved in every sense, although in magic it was a very narrow focus on ritualism and spatial magic within practice—I crammed all the theory I could. True, along with progress, the level of difficulty also rose, and I started to fail and blow up again, and some rituals were quite insidious—calculated for a certain speed and timbre of the recitative-spell, and if you read it at acceleration... in general, you had to recalculate. Yeah, right after I calmed the ringing in my head and coughed up half a liter of blood, which I then incinerated.
At this pace, the next two weeks felt like two years of subjective time to me. And that's the minimum. Then I had to take a break, because even the vaunted Kryptonian body began to give out from such loads—I started to want to eat, drink, and sleep. Raven also stayed awake all this time and, for her flow of time, almost non-stop consulted, answered questions, and advised on rituals. In general, after two weeks, I could qualify as a master ritualist in "spatial manipulations." And die. In the sense that I wanted to die, because fuck that life. So I decided that was it, basta, we rest and slightly reduce the speed, otherwise we'll kill ourselves without any Trigons and other bastards of a transworld scale.
The girl completely agreed with this position and didn't even argue for order's sake. So we just put concealment and locking spells on the cave and passed out on the bed with the skins. Just passed out, because the most we could manage was one chaste kiss for the night, and then—sle-e-e-p.
We slept, or rather "lay unconscious," for almost two days, and upon waking, both the sorceress and I felt like hell. Given the lack of normal food here (and we created water with magic), our condition and mood were pretty lousy, but there was nothing to be done, mentally sighing and gathering strength, we continued to act—Raven tried to improve the masking spells, and I—consolidated the acquired skills and carefully probed the concealment and false face rituals so that, if necessary, I could apply them myself. And in any case, it was better to apply such things to yourself. The question wasn't even about trust, but simply in the fact that your own strength would hide you much better and more effectively than someone else's. Especially when your body now and then tried to simply devour foreign spells. No, of course, if you yourself are a beginner student, and a master illusionist hides you, he will do much better, but with more or less equal skill levels—it's better to do it yourself. Raven was, first and foremost, a fighter. Stealth and other ninja stuff were strongly secondary skills for her. So in rituals and manuals that needed to be studied, I was more or less comparable to the demoness in this direction.
And so, after another four days, that is, at the end of the third week, we felt reality tremble again.
"It's started," the girl stated. "We rest, let them get properly involved and carried away with the slaughter... and then we go."
"Okay," I nodded, and then... sat the beauty on my lap.
"Henry?" she was a little surprised but didn't think to resist or be indignant.
"We have a difficult task ahead. And I plan to rest and unwind properly before it," possibly for the last time. I didn't plan to voice this, but Raven was a very smart girl and understood everything, so she turned to me and, pressing close, kissed me greedily. Well, I think this "night" we won't fall asleep anytime soon.
Transfer to the Sinister Fortress
The transfer to the sinister stronghold of the sinister Archdemon went surprisingly routinely. We loaded all our meager belongings and books into Raven's spatial fold, and then came the "smearing" with all possible protections, and on a ritual basis, reinforced by the sacrifice of a captured demonic animal. The sorceress didn't like such methods, but the matter was serious, so we didn't disdain any opportunities to increase our chances, especially since we weren't sacrificing innocent virgins on the "altar," but a malicious chthonic creature that would have gladly eaten us if it could. But everything was ready, we approached each other, the sorceress concentrated, and... a sphere of Darkness covered us, and our bodies were pierced for a moment by a breath of something... just something. I could have started talking about "ancient, powerful, terrifying"... but no, it was more like the breath of an autumn wind, damp and chilly, carrying a coolness almost unattainable in this world, after which we found ourselves in some kind of hall.
"... " The unusually gloomy and focused demoness waved her hand at me, indicating the direction.
The "plan" of Trigon's palace building had been drawn for me by the sorceress, and she had even built something like a 3D model using her magic, but we're talking about the heart of the Archdemon's domain, so since then his residence could have been rebuilt hundreds of times. So we could only navigate by magic, and I still had problems with that, and only Raven knew the "image" of the right place. In general, that's why we performed the "Sneaking" maneuver instead of moving at acceleration.
For the first twenty minutes, there were no problems. We moved, trying to blend in with the surroundings and not stand out. Sometimes waves of evil and nauseating power swept through the corridors and halls, but the magical chaos of the demonic melee was overshadowed by... um... it was something like the distracted gaze of the owner of the house. In general, everything was fine until suddenly a familiar four-eyed face appeared from around the corner.
"Oh!" one of my sorceress's "brothers" was surprised.
"Yeah," I nodded at him and broke his neck.
"Run!" Before the body even began to fall to the ground, the sorceress rushed forward.
Her haste was understandable—even if Trigon didn't feel another death of his offspring now, the very thing, right now, was screaming to him that the "beloved daughter" had brought "that goat" into the house, and they were going somewhere together. And such a demon would become interested and actually get off his throne, because it was close, and the behavior was atypical and very bold. So I picked up the lady in my arms and pressed the acceleration to the fork, and there I froze, waiting for where to turn. While the sorceress figured out and realized the change in the situation (only a couple of seconds—we also trained this moment when we realized that I couldn't accelerate her, only carry her in acceleration), I hastily drew primitive but quite powerful and evil restraining amulets. A normal mage would spend ten hours of real time on this; I managed in a couple of seconds... and hoped that these couple of seconds of protection against Trigon would give... well, until he got a little more serious.
We burst into the library suddenly and with wide eyes. The girl immediately reached one of the shelves and began to flip through the folios.
"This one!" she snatched the right volume with telekinesis, and time froze again, and I began to read at a demonic pace. So... Ah, I see... And this... Damn, I don't have enough skill—the ritual can only facilitate the creation of the portal, but the opening itself requires a "launch" through a spell. It's like with an electric motor—to make it work, you need the motor itself, to which you need to supply current. The right parameters of current. I could assemble this "motor" and even bring wires to it, but to give the right frequency and voltage to make it work—no way. Raw power would be enough, but it would burn everything rather than start it. So I redrew the necessary ritual pattern.
"Candles there and there," I emerged from acceleration, "a bowl of demon blood—there," and while Raven completed the ritual part, I went back into acceleration and began to literally stuff the entrance, walls, free sections of the floor, and ceiling with amulets—the Winchester brothers, so to speak, approve! If it made sense, I would have covered everything in seven layers, but alas.
BOOM—the doors crumbled to dust, and behind them appeared a four-eyed, four-meter beast of a man.
"Raven, my daughter, I see you decided to honor me with your attention. And even brought a friend to meet..."
"We have ten seconds!" she broke a vial of some crap, causing my amulets to flare up. "Patakh'et shaarey haolamot," the girl began to read the first phrases of the spell to open the dimension's door.
"We have a whole ten seconds," I surveyed the huge library hall.
At its end, realizing what was happening, Trigon casually tore apart my sorceress-improved amulets. Hmm, either I overestimated myself, or he got serious—in a second, the demon made a dozen ritual patterns "burn out." But I had spawned a good hundred of them. And, in general, while my friend was preparing to pull our asses out, and her father clearly intended to "disapprove" of the suitor, I... in front of his eyes, cynically robbed the library, stuffing everything into my own spatial fold at acceleration. It was smaller than Raven's, and temporary, created by a ritual, and after three days it would spit out everything that was put into it, but... it would be enough for me. So when the sorceress finished and a sinister-looking black-green portal opened behind her, there wasn't a single book left in the Archdemon's library.
"We're leaving!" my lady shouted, watching anxiously as the roaring Trigon covered the last meters.
"Belial sends his greetings and thanks for the gifts, asshole!" flipping him the middle finger, I flew into the portal backward, picking up my sorceress.
The last thing we heard was an enraged roar and the strike of a clawed paw, which belonged more to a twenty-meter giant than a "mere" four-meter "dwarf." True, the paw pressed against the portal itself and couldn't overcome the thin film, but those were details. Then there was a flight from nowhere to nowhere, another flash of Darkness, and... we found ourselves in the air.
Below us was a night forest, a real one! Alive! And the air was intoxicatingly scented with thunder and freshness. Bright, "pure" stars, the kind that only appear after a downpour, shone on the night velvet of the sky.
"We... we did it! We escaped! Waaah!" the girl, whom I had been holding in my arms all this time, happily squealed. And, embracing me, kissed me passionately.
"Yeah..." after the kiss ended, I was also able to laugh happily. "But let's not do that again? I thought my heart would fall out of my ass!"
"Not just yours..." the dark mage confessed. "And in general," she immediately went on the offensive, "you called the Archdemon a... bad word! And showed an indecent gesture. And said that you were from another Archdemon!" it sounded almost accusatory.
"And those hastily broken amulets are 100% destabilized and will explode, so I also blew him up..."
"Henry! I adore you!" and she kissed me again, happily kicking her legs and having fun.
"Yes, praise me! Praise me completely!" I allowed.
"Pfft... But... you understand that in this state, Trigon will really attack Belial's domains?"
"Do we care about the showdown between two finished bastards?" I raised an eyebrow.
"Nope," she shook her head contentedly. "Oh, how long I've dreamed of this! I can't believe we did it..."
"Uh-huh," I myself was bursting with such lightness and happiness. And I also really wanted to grab this wonder (already), press it to me (also), and drag it into my cave, from which I wouldn't let it out for a week. At least. And there were problems with that. First, it would be nice to figure out where we ended up, and then—what to do next. Although two mages wouldn't get lost and would arrange comfort in any cave, but in the future, I'd like something more prestigious, yes. Well, for now... why not find a more comfortable glade and start exploring either a new or a well-forgotten old world?
We were bursting... for a long time. Words can't convey that feeling of delight and relief that squeezed us in its embrace. What's more, after landing, the girl and I just... touched the grass. Yes, a cool sorceress and "severe biological weapon" lay on the wet post-rain grass for a good hour and a half, touching it, rubbing it between our fingers, inhaling the aroma and all that. And it was just awesome! And there were bushes! And trees! And... oh! Probably, to an outside observer, we resembled some stoned drug addicts, but we didn't care! And it was very good. Although, I swear, if at that moment some face, deciding that it was a super guardian of public order, tried to get to us, I would have incinerated it without hesitation, along with any number of disapprovingly nodding old ladies and laughing drunks. In general, we were very lucky to end up in some forest, not in a city where there's always some mug who thinks they're the boss. And when the first raptures passed, I scooped up my beauty into my arms and... No, we didn't go further than hugs and a couple of kisses, although we both clearly wanted to, but a wet forest isn't the best place for lovemaking when you don't even have a tent. And yes, you get used to the good quickly, there—give me a tent!
However, as soon as the first impressions were somewhat digested and we finally realized that the real Hell was behind us, other questions began to arise. From almost philosophical "what to do next?" to quite trivial "where are we, actually?" However, we didn't think to aim for something global yet and didn't build any epic plans for the future. First, it was worth determining our location. And also—to transfer my loot to the sorceress. Oh, how the heart of this bookworm trembled as new and new tomes migrated into her storeroom. True, this didn't prevent the lady from casting spells on each little book and checking for surprises. Because we shouldn't forget where we stole these books from—what if a Necronomicon accidentally got mixed in, just waiting for a convenient moment to start corrupting souls and summoning Satan. Or Trigon, which, perhaps, would be even worse.
The check, by the way, turned out to be far from useless. No, thankfully, no animated evil and ominous folios were found. But several cursed tomes were indeed identified. A normal mage, touching such a thing, could be killed, and in a very nasty and painful way; for Raven, as a half-demon, it was easier, but still unpleasant, and I didn't even notice, because my aura had already adapted enough, and curses of that level simply didn't work on me. In the sense that yes, they were powerful and deadly, but the mechanism of the curse itself implied a subtle and insidious effect that somehow bypassed the victim's protection and hung all sorts of bad things on their body/energy/soul. My aura, which had already "dealt" with demonic energies of a similar spectrum, not only resisted such "penetration," but even began to devour it! No, if a Higher Demon, or even someone of medium level with the necessary knowledge and skills, set out to curse me, I wouldn't have liked it, but "universal," lying on an object and stretched over time—no, it didn't take. Nevertheless, we spent a decent amount of time on "neutralization," and given everything we had successfully survived... in short, the comedown was beginning. And if I was just calming down from the excitement, Raven was really starting to crash. And so, as a proper man should, I hurried to take care of my woman. True, there were technical questions and problems here.
Finding out where we ended up wasn't so difficult—I flew higher, surveyed the area, saw the nearest town, found road signs there (super vision is super), and there was a note in English—"700 miles to Vancouver." Straining my memory, both my own and that of the body into which some knowledge had been invested, I concluded that we were in Canada. Somewhere in the southwest of this country, to be precise, and the town where I found this sign was called Prince George and was located in British Columbia—that's what the region was called. Nearby was a river flowing into the Pacific Ocean. Not the most pleasant place in terms of climate, but compared to Trigon's domains—earthly paradise. And it was picturesque here, yes, that's true. The only trifle left was to get housing, dinner, and all sorts of things for comfortable living without money or documents.
Actually, not such a difficult task if you take into account various abilities. Here it was even elementary: in the suburbs there were plenty of empty houses—either people had gone somewhere on "vacation," or there were just economic problems, but finding a dwelling a little off the beaten path that had clearly been empty for more than a week, judging by the layer of dust, wasn't difficult. Cleaning off the damned dust at superspeed was also easy. So the girl, who was already "nodding off," was carefully laid on the bed, over which I spread the well-proven demonic skins. I could have done without them, but fussing with washing and drying laundry would definitely be too much. And so—no problems. The breakfast turned out a little more complicated... Ah, well, I just went to one of the town's cafes at the same acceleration and "borrowed" a few egg dishes, fruit casseroles, porridge, and other dishes that were prepared in large batches for a dozen servings, and where the loss of a couple of said servings wouldn't be noticed. So the awakened sorceress was greeted with breakfast in bed.
"O-o-oh," the girl, who had taken the form of a gray-skinned beauty almost faster than we had arrived on Earth, squinted contentedly, "delightful... Where did you get such a wonder?"
"Borrowed from a neighboring cafe. They won't miss it, and a normal breakfast for the first time in God knows how long definitely won't hurt us."
"Hmm..." Raven was clearly calculating whether she objected to petty thefts for the good cause of maintaining our strength and good mood, "yes, perhaps," after a short struggle (and a couple of spoonfuls of porridge with raspberry jam), the young demoness compromised with her conscience.
"Oh," I surveyed the contented beauty, "you're all messy."
"M-m-m? Where?" she asked, already chewing a pancake.
"Here," I collected the detected crumb from the corner of the sorceress's lips. And sent it to my mouth.
"Hmmm..." the demoness thought, and then... dipping her finger in the jam, smeared her lips with it. "I think you missed a couple of spots," after which the finger was demonstratively licked. Well, it seems someone has rested physically but is very willing to rest spiritually. And, of course, I wasn't going to refuse.
"Oh, what an oversight on my part," I moved closer to the sorceress and kissed her slightly open lips, licking the treat off them. Well, then I "noticed" traces of "messiness" on her neck, and in general, it was worth thoroughly examining my combat companion and making sure that she hadn't mystically gotten dirty anywhere else. Yes, this sounded like a plan, so I picked up my lady in my arms and headed with her to the bed. The skins on it were hard and from demons, but the mattress was quite soft, and on it you could very pleasantly and comfortably lay out the trustingly snuggling beauty who was smiling tenderly at you and stroking your chest with her fingers. The celebration of returning to Earth continued.