I recovered quickly and made my way back to the road. The shadow demon with the staff still stood on the road though and blocked my path when I came to cross. "Beware Demon." It warned me with angry eyes. I laughed at him. He was joking, right? This little punk ass shit of a shadow demon with his little magic stick wasn't going to stop me!
I instantly attacked him. I turned into my human form and used my mental powers to fire flame at this shadow demon too. This demon used his staff, and teleported from my flames, but still close enough to battle. Behind me, he fired a blast of ice at my back. Fire demons and Ice attacks do not go over well.
The blast broke my concentration and sent me crashing back into my demon form. The ice instantly paralyzed my wings, and sent strings of pain through my body. I howled in anger and pain and threw myself at him. I made sure this time that the damn demon couldn't use that fucking staff against me. I caught the staff in my jaws and tore it from his hands. The shadow demon instantly dispersed.
I settled down, and tucked the staff under one my stunned wings. Then, I began my walk to the city once more. The walls of the city were made of a completely black stone, and stood twenty feet hight at every point. Every 2,500 feet of wall there was a great tower, with threatening ballistas pointing from the portholes.
Great gates stood at the end of the path I had been on. On each side, the gates where encompassed by one of the great towers. I could see the defensive demons inside, manning the giant crossbows and eyeing me with great suspicion. They probably thought that I was some sort of spy or informant of another hostile city-state.
I stopped in front of the gates and turned to my human form. I held the shadow demon's staff in my hands and waited to be hailed. Eventually, a portcullis opened in one of the towers and a demon poked its moderately human head out.
"Who are you?" It called in a male voice.
"I am a Regal Jarilith, in search of a civilized home beyond the forests. Am I welcome here?" I looked up and called back.
The demon in the window receded, and for a few minutes there was nothing. I was getting annoyed and impatient. I started to look for places for me to climb the wall and get in without their permission. Just as I had given up on the demon in the window, the grey doors creaked, and began to move. They only opened wide enough for me to fit through, but hey-- I'm in!
The city looked dark and rough, as a city of demons should look. Two great, demonic guards stopped me, and asked my name. I gave them a fake one. Actually, I gave them Syl'pierre's. They wrote down the name I gave them and let me past.
I passed them without much thought of the encounter. The city before me was more of a rough commune of shanties and shacks. That part must've been the poorer side of the city, and it seemed to snake its way all around the city's outskirts, like a second wall of filth and poverty. It took a good walk to get to the nicer parts of the city, which were just flooding with other demons. So were the slums, but there were more shadow demons and slime demons than anything. Slime demons were like oozes, except they could take humanoid shapes. Think giant jello-monsters.
The inner city though, which had buildings rising over fifty feet in the air, gave home to a diverse range of demons. Each demon had an element, and each element fell into about seven different domains. The natural four, earth, wind, fire, and water, plus a few others such as sound, shadow, and electricity. Many of the demonic species that dwelled in this town seemed to be of the Earth, Shadow, or Fire elements. I fell into that fire category.
In the center of the city there was a bustling market place, that had a air-ship dock right next to it. The air-port stood atop a few different buildings that surrounded the marketplace. As I neared, I could see abyssal blimps landing and leaving the ports with haste.
The Second and Third of Five
Start from the beginning
