COMPASS OF TRUE LOVE - CHAPTER 22

Chapter 22: Aww Hell

-Marion-

When I came to, I found myself in a decently sized rocky cocoon. The dark forms of my companions were all scattered about the room, most of them asleep, except for Lorelei.

She was sitting next to me, her violet eyes glowing in the pitch blackness of out safe space. Not that it would remain safe forever. We would need to get towards breathable air eventually, but I cast the spell so we would end up a thin wall away from the passage that Lorelei had pointed out when the creature began to rose.

“Hey, we’re alive,” I softly whispered to the elf.

Her eyes darted down at me and she immediately pulled me into a hug.

“Holy heavens you’re amazing Marion!” she exclaimed, maybe a little louder than she intended. I heard Liana stir lightly, but she settled down again soon.

“Thanks,” I giggled into her shoulder before untangling myself from her. “How long was I gone?”

“Three hours at the most. Time is difficult to tell down here.”

“Then we should open up the cocoon soon, we don’t want to end up suffocating while we’re asleep.”

Lorelei nodded sagely and helped me up a little. “Are you going to be okay casting? That was some serious magic exhaustion back there,” she mentioned worriedly.

Usually, it is a very dumb idea to do any more magic after being magically exhausted, but I only needed to put a small hole into the wall towards the tunnel and then we’d be able to finish our rest.

“I’ll just punch a little hole in. Then I’ll do the rest of the wall tomorrow when I’m fully rested.”

Lorelei accepted my logic and I went to work. It took a little longer than it usually would have, but I managed to place a fist-sized hole into our cocoon. Almost immediately we were greeted with a much fresher smelling breeze.

With a satisfied smile, I slid back down the wall. My body felt broken. Lorelei sat down next to me and gave me a reassuring side-hug. “You saved our lives back there, you know?”

I giggled softly. “They’re good lives to safe.” I gave Lorelei a little smirk, before leaning against her shoulder and promptly dozing off.

*****

I found myself… somewhere. I couldn’t describe it at all. I was on a mountain-like feature, but it wasn’t a natural slope. Instead it was jagged and torn asunder. As if the entire mountain exploded and was then frozen in that moment.

Several pieces of rock were floating by, covered in mysterious plants I’d never seen before. There were violet vines trailing down all the way to the bottom of the cracked mountain. A thin layer of light blue moss carpeted most of the rock. There were a few mushrooms scattered about the moss surface, though their colours seemed mostly natural to me. In the valley below however, I could see large mushrooms, the size of trees, forming a great forest that reached up the mountain range.

I took a step back from the ledge of the rock I was on and turned. I stood there, shocked. There was a cottage. A regular, wooden cottage. Similar to the ones in the woods near Tumblewood, but more robust, to withstand the mountain weather.

I slowly approached the structure and scanned it for a door of some kind, but I could only find two shuttered windows. Then I heard a hum. It was quiet and gentle and it came from within the cottage.

“Oh my sweet, innocent Sephie, what am I going to do with you?” the gentle voice mumbled. Wait, Sephie? What the fuck!? Was she already seeing someone else? No wait this is obviously a dream, so I’m just imagining her sleeping with someone else. Yes, that’s it.

Not that I could blame her, if she moved on. I mean I’m getting pretty cosy with Lorelei and I feel like she’s interested in me, too. Though… What if this was another one of those dreamwalking things? Sephie did enter my dream once before, she might have done it again. Maybe she is dreaming of this girl!

Now I couldn’t help but be curious. I crept towards one of the windows. Worst case scenario? I get caught and act like I’m just a figment of her dream. Not a real person at all.

My fingers gripped the wooden shutters and very quietly and carefully pried them open just a tiny little bit to peek in. My breath immediately held still. I was looking at a cosy, expensive looking loveseat. Sephie was lying down, fast asleep, her head placed on the other woman’s lap, while she was gently stroking Sephie’s hair with one of her clawed hands and humming.

Though, to be honest, I wasn’t sure calling her a woman was appropriate. The girl that held Sephie in her lap was a demon. Full on, capital D demon. Blue skin, a set of curved, black horns, two sharp fangs, a long, slender, spade-tipped tail wrapped around her ancle and two leathery wings leaning against the back of the loveseat.

To be fair, if Sephie managed to get herself seduced by this demon, I wouldn’t be surprised. She was extremely pretty. She had heterochrome eyes, one grey and one blue. Long raven hair, carefully woven into dozens of braids. Her outfit was amazing as well. She wore a blue crop-top with a yellow beaded trim at the bottom and low hanging, loose pants, that revealed the black string of her panties.

Honestly, I could even imagine myself falling for this demon. She looked plenty experienced and my mind was going places, thinking what that tail of hers could do… I shook my head aggressively. Nope Marion, don’t think about the sexy demon doing sexy things to you. That’s how you lose your soul.

My eyes flitted back through my peeping slit and they were promptly covered in shadow. The demon was walking towards the window. Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit! I immediately pulled back. Her steps were getting closer and I threw myself onto the ground and pressed myself against the wall. So long as she doesn’t lean out the window and look down, I’ll be alright.

The shutters flew open and her clawed hands gripped the windowsill. She let out a dreamy sigh and the wood creaked as she placed her elbows down onto the frame and leaned her head in her hands.

“I didn’t always live this isolated, you know?” she muttered to no one. “I grew up in Caress. My mom’s a succubus. But then dad got a job from his family. He’s a deceiver. So we moved to the City of Secrets. Terrible place. I’m lucky I got out of there at all.”

She slid off one of her arms and let it hang down into the air loosely. “And where are you from?” she leaned forward slightly and glanced down to me.

“Uhh.”

“Very unimaginative name, that.”

“I- Uhh. I’m… I’m Marion? Don’t eat me.“

She let out one of the most enchanting laughs I’ve ever heard. “Woah that was cute. Well Marion, nice to meet you, I’m Nydia! I assume Sephie somehow pulled you along with her dreamwalking business?”

“Hi. Uhh, maybe? She did enter my dreams before. It was a recent thing though. You’re not going to eat Sephie, are you?” My heart was pounding like hell. How was I just casually chatting with a demon?!

“Well, I mean… I plan to! But only in the sexy way.” A sharp grin crossed her face and she flashed her fangs at me.

I couldn’t help but giggle a little. I sat up cross-legged and a thought occurred to me. “Wait, are you, like, with her? Physically? Like are you travelling together?” Maybe I could find out where Sephie was! Last thing I knew she was on the road somewhere and I sent her a letter, warning her about some goblins.

“That depends… who are you to her?” the demon asked pointedly. The conversation was pretty light so far, but she was suddenly very suspicious of me.

“I’m her childhood friend,” I answered truthfully. “And kind of… her ex,” I added quietly.

She raised an eyebrow.

“Look I was just really worried about her, cause she was travelling around somewhere and then I heard there was a pack of goblins running around near our hometown so I sent her a magic letter to warn her but I haven’t heard from her since, at all.”

Nydia let out a long, exasperated sigh and muttered something along the lines of ‘lesbians’ before looking back down to me. “We were in Omar yesterday, but the city got attacked. We fled to a village near Three-Point Fort. I don’t know what our next move is, though.”

Okay so she’s safe! I mean one of the biggest cities on the continent was attacked, but Sephie’s okay. Also, the King just died and the whole kingdom will be in chaos, but Sephie’s still okay. She should probably maybe get to a safer country for a while.

“Okay, that’s good. That’s great! Not the city being attacked thing, just the Sephie being safe thing! We’re currently on our way south towards Rizishma.”

“Really?” the demon asked. “That’s my destination as well… Maybe we’ll meet up sometime on our journey!” She suddenly sounded very enthusiastic and I couldn’t tell why that was. She did give off a much more predatory aura now, though.

Her head pulled back into the cottage for a moment, before popping back out.

“I’d hate to ruin the mood, but our loveable idiot is about to wake up, so we’ll be pulled out of dreamscape. It was lovely to meet you, Marion.” She gave me a wink and disappeared inside again.

A moment later I shunted awake.

*****

I was still pressed up against Lorelei’s body when I woke up. She was still fast asleep, from what I could tell, but there was faint movement on the other side of the cocoon.

“Are you up, Marion?” Liana’s quiet voice squeaked up.

“Yeah. I’m awake. We should probably get moving soon. How are you doing, princess?”

She pouted a little. “I’m fine. Not like I was any use down there.”

I untangled myself from Lorelei and scooched over to Liana and wrapped her in a hug. “It’s okay, Liana. You might not like it, but you are still a child. No one expects you to deal with things like that. Hells, I can’t even believe me and Lorelei managed to deal with that… thing. Whatever it was.”

She hmphed, but she relaxed a little more in my embrace. “Now, how about we wake up the other and get going. We still have a mountain range to cross.”

I moved over to Lorelei and Liana was tasked with waking up Rosie and Kamir. Even though we spent a lot more time together, I still didn’t feel confident enough to wake up the wolf.

Some ten minutes and lots of grumbling later, I opened up the wall and we stalked through the dark tunnel.

Lorelei warned us, that she didn’t know where this tunnel would lead, since she only ever used the other ones, but if our sense of direction was right, it led somewhere east from Raelund. She also told us the creature we fought was a Greater Maw Demon.

Maw demons are naturally attracted to sunken placed of civilization, being demons from the Realm of the Deep. Usually, Maw demons were weak and found their strength in numbers, but they had more growth potential than any other kind of demon, so long as they are fuelled by sufficient souls. With the entire capital city of the Greybeard Clan to itself, this particular demon was able to feast on hundreds of thousands of souls, which explained its size and power.

We spent the next two days just following the tunnel upwards, our spirits slowly dwindling.  On the third day, the tunnel started to split off into different side tunnels regularly. At first, I was worried we might get utterly lost down here, but then Kamir picked up on a very faint breeze. There was a way out nearby!

With newfound spirit, we began to pick up the pace, Kamir at the front, leading the way. It still took us hours, but eventually the breeze picked up. The air was fresh again. After another bend in the side tunnel, we came upon a staircase that led downwards. At the bottom, a faint glimmer of light caressed the stone.

We rushed down the stairs and ran towards the daylight. The tunnel opened up to a moss-covered plateau and Liana and I immediately caught our breaths as we emerged.

In front of us lied the largest valley we had ever seen before. The rolling foothills made way to a sheer endless steppe with a large lake in the centre. On the horizon sat another chain of hills. To our right and our back, the massive Karzakil Mountains crawled across the landscape and to our left was a forest like I’d never seen before. As endless as the steppe, the trees growing ever larger the further away they were.

“These are the Wildlands,” Lorelei commented dryly. “I’d say we couldn’t have taken a more dangerous route, but then again, I don’t know what else lurks within the Karzakil.”

Ah. Great.