Chapter 744: Den of Death

Jadis swore between coughs that wracked her bodies and spat a yellowish slime flecked with red out of her mouths, coating the insides of her helmets. It was so hard to breathe. The suffocating smell in the air, the chains strangling her, the thick pressure building up in her lungs; it was all too much. Her heads were spinning like pinwheels in a hurricane. She ached all over, and when she blinked, she could have sworn that blood was filling her eyes and running down her cheeks. The heat burning up her head made her want to curl into a ball and cry.

Instead, she swung her hammer and broke another chain.

“You are unusually persistent,” the hollow, featureless voice tormenting her commented. “Your attributes are also abnormally high. I would like to study you and determine what you are truly capable of, given the time and proper circumstances.”

“Fuck you,” Jay hacked out as another chain broke around her waist. “I’m going to shove your fat fucking head up Samleos’ slimy sphincter!”

“Regrettably, I believe you would persist in finding a way, given the time and proper circumstances.”

Syd and Dys glowered at the thing that had managed to trap her. She wasn’t sure what it was. Maybe a Golem, but to her it looked more like a weird robot than a statue brought to life. She had never seen or heard of a Golem made of metal, in any case. But a magic-powered android? That Jadis could imagine. Or maybe, considering the round, bulbous nature of its head, the thing was actually someone wearing a suit of some kind, like an astronaut or a deep-sea diver. She was honestly curious, and might have asked questions, given the time and proper circumstances. As it was, she would be content to just kill the fucker.

Broad across and oddly wide without appearing obese, the metallic humanoid form looked like it was made entirely out of blue-tinted steel. Maybe it was some other metal; Jadis didn’t know enough about alloys to be able to determine a material on sight. Regardless, the surface of the aqua-hued metal was covered in a deeply intricate weave of inlaid runes. There was no bare, unadorned space on any part of the body. Every inch was covered in layer upon layer of runework that glowed a faint lime green in the shadowy light. Jadis didn’t recognize any of the carvings and wouldn’t have known even where to start considering the complex nature of the work on display. But one rune she did recognize, at least in how similar it was to what she had seen Sabina work on. The perfectly round head, or helmet, had a circular, eye-like space on the front which bore in the center a symbol that Jadis knew Sabina had used when she had replicated the ancient Nephilim ceremonial helm to make her own vision helmet.

“I see why Demon Prince Desire is so obsessed with you. Once she returns—”

“Shut the fuck up!” Dys snarled and activated Knight’s Daring Charge.

Lurching forward against her chains, she couldn’t get enough momentum to fully free herself, but more of the mercury-like bindings broke as she shifted forward another yard. The stone beneath her feet cracked and chunks came up off the ground, the anchor points of the bonds shattering before the magical chains themselves. Several more of the silver bindings sprung up from the ground at a press of the controls that the steel bastard had in its hand, but not as many as had been broken. With her left arm almost completely free, she began striking at her Jay self’s legs, working to free at least one of her bodies fully.

“Personally, I believe killing you is the best course of action. However, I lack the adequate means. Further, I do not wish to deal with the wrath of Demon Prince Desire. This siege has caused enough disruptions to my work already.”

Demon Prince Desire. Jadis’ rage flared to bright new heights at the mention of the deranged Demon. She was fighting Alex. Or hopefully, Alex was beating the worm to death at that very moment. But a worry in her hearts clutched her with icy fear. The reverse could just as easily be true, especially with how many allies Desire had at her disposal inside the depraved palace she had made her nest.

When Jadis had first broken through the exterior wall of the Opaline Palace, she had not known where to go. She had no idea where Alex was, other than that she would have been searching for Twisted Desire. And among the winding halls and ruined wreckage, where would the Demon Prince be? At the top of the tallest tower? Jadis didn’t think so. Desire was a twisted worm that enjoyed pulling the limbs off of her victims, delighting in their pain. She would be where the prisoners were kept, perhaps healing herself through the victimization of others after her aborted battle against Wilhelm. If prisoners were to be kept anywhere in a palace, where would that be?

In the dungeon, of course.

So, Jadis had flown through the palace, breaking down walls and floors alike, heading as deep as she could go. Her progress had not been easy, nor had it been without obstacles. Demons. So many Demons had thrown themselves at her with a ferocity unlike anything she had experienced before. The skull blob Demon and its minions had been among the horde, attacking from many directions at once, inflicting her with terrible spells, including one Divine spike to the chest that had drained her of nearly a third of her health in one go before she had killed the scythe wight that had attacked her with its extra eyeball. But it had not been just Demons she had seen before blocking her way forward. Some had possessed humans, others magic beasts of far stranger natures than she had ever encountered. Jadis had charged through them all, ignoring those that she could, killing those that she had to. Eventually, she had broken through to an unfinished tunnel, one that had not been carved by human hands, but by magic and brute force.

It was at that point that she had seen them.

Jadis had spotted them both, Alex and Desire, locked in combat, at the far end of the tunnel. Well, she had seen Alex. Of Twisted Desire, she had only been able to distinguish a confusing blur of disassociated shapes and colors. A purposeful illusion, a distraction meant to make it difficult to gauge exact location and distance. Almost immediately Jadis had activated her Cursed Reflection, inflicting Desire with the same illusion that she was putting onto others around her. It hadn’t made it so that Jadis could see her, but it had clearly caused Desire to panic, as she had almost immediately fled the tunnel where she and Alex had been fighting. Alex had pursued and Jadis had followed them, but not for long.

Twisted Desire had not been the only enemy at the end of the tunnel.

More chains broke as Jay and Dys surged forward, with new bindings leaping up from the ground to reinforce what was left. She still could not quite free herself, but she was getting closer to tearing the metal thundercunt into pieces by the second. She could see with her Succubus eyes the way the stone obelisk was powering the asshole’s enchanted console hand-thing, but even the terrible magic of a ritual sacrifice had its limits. And once the bindings were gone and she was free, she could get back to chasing after Alex. The thought of what could be happening—

“I do not wish to provoke Desire by prematurely executing you, but I will not put my own life’s work at risk to satisfy her ambitions,” the metallic figure intoned in a dispassionate announcement. “Perhaps she will return in time to do as she wishes with you before these toxins kill you. Perhaps not. Either way, I will not linger here any longer. The loss of this city is insignificant on the greater timescale. My work must continue.”

Further cementing the notion Jadis had that this steel creature was more a machine than a person, its front chest plate slid open to reveal a hollow storage space, from which it withdrew multiple small clay jars. Wax seals with rune-scrawled parchment covered the ceramic pots, their appearance tickling the back of Jadis’ mind despite her struggle to free herself. As the cultist hurled three of the jars at her, she realized why she recognized them, and not just because several had been broken on her helmet earlier when she had first been caught in the mercury chains. Those scrollwork seals were the same style as those that had covered the Erinyes’ body, the same as she had used to cast her magic.

Jadis watched with Agility-enhanced perception as the trio of jars arched through the air towards her bodies. They had to contain poisons, or deadly pathogens, or something equally as awful as whatever had infected her. She had at least one disease eating away at her lungs. How many more could she endure before succumbing to the effects? She had already used her Ceremony of Licentious Regeneration. She hadn’t had a full charge, but the few hundred points had helped at the moment. With more debilitating sicknesses about to splatter across her chests and enter her system, the only source of healing Jadis had left was Eir’s Reliquary, and that object was locked up inside the chains binding Syd.

Would she even be able to free herself in time to save her own life, much less Alex’s?

Gritting her teeth for the inevitable, Jadis prepared to hold her breath for as long as she could on the slim chance that she might be able to fully break free before inhaling the toxic fumes of whatever the robot had thrown at her. She would strike them out of the air and break them as far away as possible, though she wasn’t sure how much that would help. However, just before the jars came within the furthest reach of her Jay self’s hammer, a blue light entered her perception. At first, Jadis thought that Alex had returned. Glancing to her left with hopeful expectation, her eyes went wide at a sight that was utterly and completely unexpected.

Bridget’s azure flames burned bright as she soared over the stone lip of the nearby pit, her powerful leap carrying her perpendicular to Jadis’ position. With one free hand, the blazing warrior snared one of the jars out of the air. However, the other two struck against her torso, blocking them from reaching Jadis but causing both to burst into clouds of thick red and black smoke. Bridget carried on through the gas, her feet not touching the floor as she glided off to the right. She did not fall, but as she swung around to face the being of steel, she coughed violently, the flames coming from her mouth changing to a strange purple color.

“Bridget!” Jadis shouted in panic.

If the urns that the cultist had thrown at her had been strong enough to potentially kill her, Jadis couldn’t imagine that Bridget would be able to withstand their effects for long. Or would her flame form make a difference? Jadis didn’t know, she couldn’t even truly guess at what could happen when magic was involved. Double panicked at having another lover in mortal danger right in front of her, Jadis redoubled her efforts to break free of the mercury chains that bound her.

“Bloody fucking shit eater!” Bridget roared, her hacking coughs not stopping her from expressing her anger.

Nor did they stop her from charging at the steel cultist. Tucking the unbroken clay jar into a side pouch, Bridget threw herself at the figure, her flames flaring bright as she attacked ferociously. Her first blow struck on the cultist’s raised right arm, spreading blue fire all across its body. The second blow landed on its hip, denting the metal there badly and causing the figure to fall back and away from her, towards the screaming obelisk draining the souls out of five innocent victims. The third blow rebounded against an arcane shield, a forcefield that materialized between the roaring orc and the metallic fiend.

The cultist had retreated far enough that it had entered within the space of the strange, polyhedron frame that surrounded the raised altar platform. Jadis could see the power filling the empty space between the bronze struts, creating a magic shield that Bridget’s weapon bounced off without effect. She didn’t need her Succubus vision to tell her that the hexagons were being given the same tremendous defensive power that the rest of the impenetrable domes possessed.

Roaring with her own anger, Jadis cracked several more of the chains that bound her, but a couple more appeared in their place. Apparently, the silver asshole still had the reserves available to keep whatever spell trap it was using to bind her going despite switching on its shields. Jadis growled in frustration, as any delay could prove lethal not just to her or Alex now, but Bridget as well. Then, a different growl echoed her own and she realized that her favorite orc had not entered the den of death alone.

Silver shards flew as Noct’s polearm smashed the chains binding Jay’s legs to pieces. In seconds she was free and, without a micro instant of hesitation, Jay launched herself at the hex shield that Bridget had lit up with her azure flames. Demon bone crashed against arcane force, sending waves of pressure rippling across the polyhedron structure. No cracks formed, by Jadis could see the way the power within flickered under the strength of her assault.

“Thanks,” Dys said as Noct freed her by breaking the bonds that had shackled her arm and legs. “Did anyone else make it down here with you?”

“No,” Noct growled as she turned to work on the chains that had wrapped Syd up.

“Yes…”

Dys whipped around at the voice coming from her right side, her Jay self turning at the same time. Swinging her morphic weapon, she was struck in the side before she could complete her rotation. The force of the blow sent her flying across the room like a cannonball and she slammed hard into the far stone wall, the rock cracking to pieces from the impact. As her Jay self turned and raised her hammer, her Syd self could only look up in rage at the centipedal figure that rose out of the shadows mere feet from her.

“Hello… My… Jadis…”