The inky black smoke rose up from the barbed, cooked corpse of the still burning fae. Some of it glowed, cracked, and broke off.
Egil ran up between Leoni's demons. They looked on him with skeptical eyes. Some furry, some spider-like; a disembodied hand with ten fingers. Where the fuck did she find these?
The red locks of the demonologist peer swayed in the wind. When he stood next to her, the broken features of the fae before them; its skeleton replaced with a meat wrapped lattice, trying sometimes in vain, sometimes with success through the outer flesh, dripping in the green fluids of the entity utterly violated by them, from toe, to finger.
Despite the nighmarish scare-crow-like parody of the human form, he still found attention still being demanded of the smoke. Another problem: They... were... all... still on the platform, presumably in Arcadia... somewhere. What even was the layout of Arcadia?
For all intents and purposes, they were still 'in the arena.' At, least as far as Egil knew. Stabbing his original captor had been sufficient to eject him from Arcadia that one time. Though, looking at the misshapen form, this one would hold out. Or, he was in fact dead, and they need to find a different way out.
Hell was known for pushing summoners to their psychology breaking point. Since reality is so fluid at that layer, the less 'flexible' the mind, the more likely it is to snap. Egil had seen the differences in realities as a trade-off, and found himself indifferent to one environment or the other. Actually, maybe 'indifference' wasn't the best term. There were some pretty big challenges, sleep being one of them.
Getting back on topic: How does Arcadia work? He felt clueless.
The smoke did appear to be accumulating though. It began to cloud up the sky.
"Any ideas?" Leoni asked.
Egil looked at the blades of his swords. If the ivy shivs worked the first time...
"Kage!" He yelled for his wolf. The massive black head of an animal appeared to envelop half of his world and nuzzled him. He responded in kind, running his hand over her head. "I'm about to do something stupid and I need you to hold firm. You think you can do that girl?"
"What's the plan?" Aziza asked, catching up.
He looked at her, and then back at the stream of smoke emanating from the body. "Last time I was involuntarily teleported, I escaped using magic disrupters. These were stakes made from ivy. Silver might accomplish the same thing. Demon flames didn't appear to work so-"
The darkness suddenly dropped into a pool, with a rather anticlimactic 'splat' onto the marble(?) ground.
"Why did she did lay with an animal like you?"
Egil looked around. "Did one of you say something?"
Perhaps, unsurprisingly, the world transitioned. Egil saw a stylized Venetian plague plague mask staring back at him. If it had been absent, it would have been his half-lidded look of boredom. This had already gone on too long.
His surroundings were well lit. Everything aside from the mirror were varying shades of white. It reminded him of an especially immaculate noble's quarters.
The faye could kill him, sure; but it hadn't, which added a whole sort of 'patronizing' element to the whole experience. This... man child... was too aloof. Too confident in its invulnerability.
I should try stabbing it with the swords the next chance I get. This was born of a theory that cropped up in his head: the demon fires failed. Why? On their most fundamental level, they're large quantities of energy- His thoughts were interrupted.
