The Devine Demon {Chapter 39}

Walking into the Ducal Castle at around half past three Celeste and Lilith could see that the festivities were still in full swing. Many people were drinking and a new band had taken over from the last. Lilith couldn’t jump any more now that they were surrounded by people so she moved forward at a slow and deliberate pace.

As they crossed the banquet hall many people came over to wish them well and thank them for their heroic deeds. They couldn’t make much progress until a couple guards came over, to usher them threw the room and into the rear hall.

Once clear of the people Lilith jumped again but left Celeste behind

“Hey” she called out.

“Oh sorry I just wanted to get away from all that. Where do you think Sir Tanel is?”

“Lets try the Court room again.” Celeste called out as she skipped forward.

Entering the court room it was nearly empty except for two guards and Lady Morwen and her son, Kevin. Lilith immediately stopped in her tracks seeing the two of them in an embrace. It seemed like Lady Morwen was crying and had her head resting on Kevin’s chest, her silver hair covering half her face. Celeste now moving around Lilith to enter the room fully stopped as well but let out an involuntary sound. “Ohhh.”

The two quickly stood up straight and looked at the court room entrance at the same time. Seeing who was there Lady Morwen didn’t bother to dry her tears she just stood there motionless for a second seemingly not sure whether she wanted to shout words of thanks or begin to cry again. Instead she retrieved a white cloth from her pocket and began wiping her face and walking to greet Lilith and Celeste.

“I’m sorry to interrupt I had no idea… We are looking for Sir Tanel, it is a bit of important news.”

“Something was going on at Cromm’s Hold wasn’t there. What did you see Celeste?”

“Yes ma’am. A spellcaster dressed in black adorned with bones was leaving the hold. But I must speak with Master Wendel and Sir Tanel where are they?” Celeste said still a bit confused on how to act around Lady Morwen. Lilith could understand her confusion. Lady Morwen was stoic some times and friendly at others.

“In the master study they are using the scrying orb to look for you actually.” the Duchess replied pointing her open hand at Celeste.

“Thanks” Lilith said as she stepped over her own tail to exit the room.

Going across the back hall to the Master Study Lilith knocked and looked in. There she found a very concerned Master Wendel and Sir Tanel looking at the scrying orb but seeing nothing.

“May we come in?” Lilith asked.

“Is Celeste with you.. thank the gods we lost track of her an hour ago and couldn’t pick her up again.”

“Yes I am just fine Master Wendel I was injured but it seems the injuries from a shape-shifted form do not carry over to ones body.”

“So you were injured what happened.” Wendel asked with some urgency.

“After you used polymorph to turn me into a Giant Eagle, I went to fly over the Baroness’s territory as we discussed.”

Lady Morwen entered the room as well and stood next to Celeste listening intently. “On my third circle I spotted a group of men, marching in formation, moving down the path away from Cromm’s Hold and towards the main road. As I looked closer I saw they were in fact orcs and they were escorting an orc dressed in black robes adorned with skulls and bones and a staff made of the same.”

“A necromancer” Wendel said out loud in a hushed tone.

“Yes so I decided to try and pick them off and maybe capture the necromancer. It was a bit fool hardy of me in hind sight. I killed one orc and was about to kill another when I was struck by some spell from the necromancer. I could still fly but I was in immense pain so I tried to return to you and landed in the grass outside of the tower. Instead I found Lilith there and she dispelled the shape from me and the pain stopped.”

“So the orcs have a necromancer, that is very grave news indeed if you will pardon the phrase.”

“I told all this to Lilith and we decided to try and stop them while they were exposed on the road. You should have seen it Master Wendel she struck them all down with one bolt that split in all directions.”

“Then the necromancer is dead?”

“He is injured at least. But I am afraid he teleported away into the forest where I couldn’t see him and he brought the orcs back to life as zombies as a form of distraction while he made his escape. We did kill the zombies and burned them to ash so that there were no remains left. But the necromancer could be anywhere. Though it seemed he was heading south along the road before we intercepted them.” Lilith said with a bit of regret in her voice

“I will send more scouts to the area. We will find out what they are planning. If there is an undead army being raised we must know about it sooner rather than later.” Sir Tanel said.

“What can we do to help?”

“For the moment nothing more. You have done us a great service already. Get some rest and we will be convening for a formal party tonight I will see to the transportation and the reservations. Meet in the court room at 6 o’clock.”

“But I can try to find….” She started saying.

“Its fine Lilith that's what we have scouts for and I need you rested because you have to finish the rest of the spears tomorrow. “Sir Tanel said in a reassuring voice.

“Ok I can do that.” Lilith said reluctantly

“Yes sir” Celeste said with a smile.

Lilith looked in Celeste’s direction to see what she was so happy about.

“We need to get you another dress.” Celeste said while putting a hand on Lilith’s upper arm. “ahhh do we have to?” Lilith said while pulling at the edges of her navy blue commoners dress.

“Yes come on something with a long train.” she said as they turned to leave the room.

“No no train or fake hips or Corsets” Lilith insisted tilting a finger at her friend with each item. “How about a knee length sun dress. And how the heck am I going to fit into that back room?”

“Carefully?” Celeste says in a sing song voice.

“Fine lets go.” Lilith said as they re-entered the banquet hall. This time they flagged down a couple guards and made their way to the exit without much of a fuss. Once they reached the dirt path Lilith decided to experiment with a few different ways of moving across open ground.

Finally she figured out that her tail outweighed her by more than 2 to 1 so she began initiating the movements with her tail rather than with her legs. She found that if she scrunched her tail into a set of coils only 3’ wide and then pushed forward she could move in short bursts of about 10’ at a time. This seemed to work a lot better then the undulating slug walk. In fact she was now keeping up with Celeste as they neared the Bin and Bobbin.

A new sales person greeted them at the front and went to greet Lilith and Celeste with only a little hesitation. “Lilith of Devine, Deliverer of Duchess’.” she said as her tail held the door open.

“A pleasure and you ma’am?”

“Celeste Baker Eagle for hire” Celeste said with a smirk.

The new saleslady began to chuckle as did Lilith who was finally glad that Celeste was getting the hang of this little game.

They both began to look around, Celeste looking for a formal dress and Lilith looking for as light a dress as she could find. Celeste settled on a red dress with frills at the bottom that were bound to shake as she walked. Lilith on the other hand found a Navy blue floral embroidered dress with a split that ended at the knees. It was one of the only ones there that was large enough to fit her but she didn’t want something that was full length. So she picked up the dress and took it to the back where she found Anabel working diligently as usual.

“Lilith what brings you here today?” Anabel asked as she stopped sewing on a half complete bra.

“I need another dress and I need it cut short. To Just above the knees.” Lilith said holding the dress in front of her.

“Heavens what is that?” Anabel asked pointing down at Lilith’s feet.

“That’s a long story.” She said while dropping her head slightly.

“Well its a long tail. So I suppose that's only fitting.” Anabel said with a smile.

“We don’t have much time do you think you can do this in the next hour?” “For you I would make a dress for scratch… But I won’t have to, that one actually has a decent chance to fit you…. Most of you. In any case. Lets go to the fitting room.”

Lilith went back to the Fitting room along with Celeste who was in the process of trying on the red dress so that the bottom edges could be trimmed. Lilith used Fabricate on Celeste's dress while she was being fitted by Anabel. She merely folded up the inside edges at the bottom of the dress and welded them to the fabric on the inside by magically weaving the fibers together.

“Well if you could do that what am I wasting my time doing this for?”

“I don’t really know how to make the dress work around the tail. I need you to perform your own type of magic.” Lilith said as she tried to track Anabel who was placing pins making a new hem line just above Lilith’s knees.

“Well your tail is lifting the back of the skirt about 8” higher than it should be. So we can either make a whole for the tail or sow an extra drape of removable fabric underneath.”

“Ooooh like a train!” Celeste exclaimed with joy.

“Or like mud flaps” Lilith said with disdain.

“Mud flaps?” they both asked at the same time.

“No lets make a whole in the back just hem the edges so it looks nice.”

“How about Silver trim along the bottom hem line and on the hem line of the tail.”

“Sounds good.” Lilith said with a smile. She was starting to feel better about coming here. Anabel really did work magic with fabric and thread.

With that, Anabel went to work while Celeste twirled in her new dress. After 45 minutes and several sessions of fitting and unfitting the dress, it was finally done. Anabel had made the dress open from the tail hole up to the neck instead of just opening from the waist up. There were several buttons in the back but they were covered with fitted fabric. Lilith tried moving her tail and walking slowly in the room. After a few slight tearing noises it became clear that more space was needed at the bottom of the tail opening. A single cut and a few stitches later and the dress was done and Lilith wore it out of the store after paying.

Celeste was also paying for her dress when she noticed Anabel pulling up her bra strap to show it off to her. They gave each other a knowing look. After saying their goodbyes, Celeste and Lilith headed back to the tower to take a break They still had an hour before they were needed back at the castle. So they went to sit in the Library and Celeste began to pull out all the books on Demons that had sketches and paintings in them.

Lilith sat on an ottoman and began looking threw some of the books as well. She focused on the most dangerous and most powerful Demons The Demon lords. Many of them had names but Lilith only recognized a few. Just as she suspected Orcus was in there. And the descriptions of his followers matched. The Orcus faithful wore black robes that were adorned with white skulls and many other bones as armor and decoration. Their staves were topped with a human skull taken from a pure soul. They had fought a necromancer of Orcus and it had ended in a draw. And that damned evil wizard was walking around somewhere plotting god knows what.

In general these demon lords ruled over their own layers of the Abyss. They would raise armies and either invade the mortal realm if they found an open portal or they would attack Avernus to continue the Blood Wars. One book said that the demon lords created demons from their own nightmarish dreams. So these demon lords were surrounded by chaotic killing machines or strangely beautiful female forms made for their own lust and desire.

“Hey I found you.. Look!” shouted Celeste as she placed her finger in one of her books.

“Really what is it?” Lilith stood and leaned over the table and Celeste turned the book around to face here. There was a watercolor painting of a demon with six arms and no legs. It had the head, arms, and torso of a beautiful woman but the lower body of a green snake. The body was huge stretching back at least 25’ from the torso. And in each hand was a curved sword with a single edge. Lilith was speechless. This explained her giant tail and how it seemed to want to propel her as she walked. The description also told her why she was so strong. These Mariliths were commanders of the Abyssal army. They were tacticians and strategists and they would attack and teleport around the battlefield dismembering and eating their victims.

There was very little information on them. It seemed that not may people that saw one survived. The one thing that rang home was the warning not to try and hide from these using invisibility or illusions as they could see through all things.

“So Lilith the Marilith ruler of the third room its nice to meet you.”

“Oh shut up. I’m I’m not that, thing. That's not me!” Faced with the horror of her own inhuman body and the further horrors yet to come Lilith began to cry. She had been trying so hard for that whole day. Trying not to drool. Trying not to bite anyone that smelled particularly tasty. Trying not to crush anyone with her tail. Trying not to lose her temper every time someone asks ‘what is that thing?’ She just wanted to be normal and accepted.

Maybe that is why she had been trying to do good deeds. She was overcompensating. She wasn’t a holy or perfect person she had her own sins and selfish desires. She wanted to make out with her best friend and probably would have done so, if she wasn’t so afraid of losing her as well. She wanted to use her magic to make piles of gold. She wanted to experience sex and pleasure. She wanted to eat as much food as she could. So why was she playing nice playing the protector in this town that she could easily rule over.

Why hadn’t she given in to her base desires. Why should she be the only one to act so noble? She started thinking about her friends. Were they really acting so noble? Sir Tanel had entered her room uninvited and laid his heart bare. He had confided in her and she returned that trust by rescuing his lost love. Celeste was sent to spy on her but had willingly become her best friend and then confessed the act of spying while they shared a bed together after a night of drinking and dancing. Lilith looked down at her tail and thought ‘Well at least I can still drink tonight’.

Sharl had tried to hit on her from the very start, but had proven to be a good man. He helped cheer up Celeste when she was feeling inadequate and unloved. He had also been helping her train while asking for nothing in return. Wendel was helping her learn and understand the magic she could wield, while also trying to help her live in this world without killing anyone.

Then she thought back to her first night in Faerun. Her first visit from Lathander. He told her that she wasn’t alone. Did he know she would have such friends? Or was he walking along with her as well? Lilith still felt herself unworthy but was remembering the warm light of dawn that had been with her going back to her childhood in each memory from her dream. God was always with her. He had been there the whole time. Threw all of it. And she was even closer to him now. She had spoken to him just last night. Of course she wasn’t alone. And she had friends because she had been dependable and kind and because she despised evil, especially the evil within herself. Maybe that was why she was angry. Normally she could suppress or hide her selfish desires. But this outward form could not be hidden and couldn’t be wished away even with her most powerful of magics.

Celeste had come around the table and was rubbing one hand on Lilith’s back as she balled her eyes out. She screamed “Why” periodically as the argument and rationalizations played out in her head.

Then Lilith decided. If her outward appearance wouldn’t secure her a position in this world it would have to be her deeds that defined her. Deeds worthy of the faith god had placed in her. For he had given her every talent and every strength she had from the moment she was born.

Wiping her face and her eyes Lilith began to stand upright again. She turned to her right to face Celeste and held the hand she had been rubbing on her back. It felt warm probably from all the extra friction. “I’m sorry I bit you this morning.” She said with a sniffle.

“I know you didn’t mean it. I’m fine now. Look not even a scratch.” Celeste said turning her arm over.

“And I’m sorry I didn’t ask Lathander to give you wings.” Lilith said with a chuckle “they would have looked bad on you anyways.”

“Ya I would have had to sell half my dresses and I wouldn’t be able to wear my bras.” Celeste said with a delayed laugh.

“Thanks.” Lilith said looking Celeste directly in the eyes with a kind smile.

“For what?” Celeste asked as she looked up at her friend.

“For not treating me like a demon.” Lilith said wiping the last tear away from her eyes.

“Hey.” She waited till she had Lilith’s attention. “Thanks for not treating me like a useless apprentice.”

“Yes instead I treat you like a pack animal. Celeste my faithful steed.”

“Shut up” Celeste said as she slapped Lilith's side playfully.

“Oh I just had the best idea ever. Have you ever heard of this spell called Dragon’s Breath?” Lilith asked.

“No but Wendel might know it.’

“Know what?” Wendel asked as he walked threw the library to the next set of stairs that lead up to his room.

“A spell called Dragon’s Breath”

“Yes I know it” He said as he stopped and turned to face the two ladies. “My teacher insisted I learn it. He said it was handy in case I ever got surrounded by Kobolds. You fry a few of them with Dragons fire and the rest start worshiping you as a god. But I have never really used it except in practice.”

“Can you teach it to us?” Lilith asked with the same enthusiasm Celeste normally had.

“One second.” Wendel goes to the book shelf and pulls out the copy of his spell book and flips to the page with Dragon’s Breath. “Now if you will excuse me I need to change.” Wendel headed up the stairs to the third level of the tower where he quarters lie across from Celeste's.

Lilith copied the spell first as it only took her about 30 seconds. Then Celeste began copying it into her book using a specially made enchanted quill.

She then began reading the spell sequence as Celeste scribbled away. [Dragon’s Breath] The caster is able to produce a large gout of flame, acid, lightning, poison, or cold just as a breath from a dragon by inhaling deeply and blowing suddenly. This spell has greater range and effect if cast using larger amounts of spell power than what is needed to cast the spell normally. The effect lasts for 5 breaths.

“So whats this great idea you had Lilith?” Celeste asked with a sly grin.

“Oh just imagine a Giant Eagle swooping down on that group of ten orcs but instead of picking up one you drench them all in red hot dragon’s breath.”

“Or lightning breath!” Celeste said with wicked smile and a small hop.

“Imagine the surprise on those dumb orc’s faces. You open your mouth and they expect to hear an eagle scream and then Zap!!!” Lilith said followed by lots of electrocution noises.

The two girls found themselves bent over laughing in hysterics.

“Wait with a pact there is no limit it could just be a normal thing for my eagle form. I could come fight with you.” Celeste said after regaining her composure and scribbling in the last part of the spell into her book.

“Yep.” Lilith said with a twist and a nod of her head.

Lilith looked longingly at Celeste glad she had a friend that could help her overcome her own internal demons. She also clenched her Holy Symbol and said a quick prayer of thanks in here head and then said out loud. “I’m not alone.”

Celeste began to collect the books into a pile but wanted to show the entry on the Marilith to Wendel when he got back down.

Lilith and Celeste were already dressed both in completely new dresses that couldn’t be more different. Celeste's was a thick dark red fabric that went down to her feet and made her look more adult and more regal. While Lilith’s dress was lighter, more form fitting and looked like something you would wear to a picnic outdoors.

Once Wendel came down in a silver and red formal robe they showed him the book entry and he suddenly got a headache that lasted for a minute before it cleared up.

“Yes that definitely looks like you Lilith with not so many arms.”

“Are you ok Wendel?” Lilith asked as he sat down on a lounge chair. She thought for a brief second she could see something swirl around his head but looking again she saw nothing.

“Ya, I’m fine. I think I spent too much time scrying on you two today. Now lets get going we don’t want to be late to a party that is mostly in your honor.” Wendel said, looking at both the well dressed ladies standing around him.

Lilith gave him another look but couldn’t see anything wrong with him.

Wendel stood up and started to leave the Tower going down to the first floor. They each said a new curse at Pencheska’s general direction as they left and began to walk across the grass to the entrance of The Ducal Castle.

---

PS: I have chapter 40 almost complete as I am a day ahead on writing and do the editing each morning. We are now over 200 pages. How do you think the story is going? Is there too much dialogue? Any constructive feedback is welcome as usual. And thanks for reading and being part of this community.

---

Wiki First Previous Next