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 Posted: Sun May 15, 2016 3:27 pm
Barth looked over the floor for sigils. "Disfigure the seal. And any other signs or symbols."
His eyes slid over to the snail, voice icy.
"I don't know. Vinnie, was it? Is there anything we should know about?"
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Posted: Sun May 15, 2016 3:35 pm
Vinnie nervously did not relax, fiddling with a button on his suit and getting slime on the fabric as he did so. He looked like he was sweating, but it could have been the normal state of his shiny and rather brightly coloured skin. "Look. There.. there shouldn't be any traps. Traps could.. erm."
There was supposed to be traps. Rah had been very insistent there be spikes and pits and horrible acid baths and any number of brutal things. He just hadn't gotten around to them and had had to make up creative lies about how the whole room was bristling with them and he hadn't wanted to trip them by mistake.
"..no. There aren't any." he said weakly. "And Rah's.. well."
He did not like the one with the horns, he looked almost exactly like the small neat photos he'd been shown of Rasputher and he'd heard some of the things the other demon was supposedly capable of, he'd overcome even death some of the rumours said. He wasn't sure he wanted to get on his bad side.
Rah wouldn't be back for several hours, maybe more if he got to drinking. He was supposed to call his phone if something happened.
"He's a wrath demon, very big, very angry. He er...he doesn't like your sister." he said and looked somewhat anxiously at Barth. "Speaking of where...is..."
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Posted: Sun May 15, 2016 4:32 pm
"Good, because if there are any, I'm going to take one of those spikes and let it find your gut." He then ushered Vinnie over to Barth. "Did you or Rah set up this seal? You know how to disfigure the seal and symbols. If you do, then you better start. If you don't - " Calder looked over at Barth.
"If he's really a servant, think he can call his master? I could tie him up otherwise if he isn't useful. I want to get Zar down, but I don't want to make it worse. After the magic, we need to pull all those pins out and move those chains off." He looked up at the demon who didn't even seem to know they were here to save him at long last.
"Jack, I just want him down, but I don't want him to suffer more."
He looked over at Vinne and tugged on his collar again. "What? His sister? Are the two of us not enough for you right now? I can send you to her in little pieces. I at least know her servants would like fresh meat however slimy. I know a great recipe for someone like you."
Vinne sadly seemed to be a servant, but if he could call back to the master, it could make Rah rush over here before they got Zar down and out of any more danger. Dissipating him would be safe, but it would just mean Vinnie would go back to Rah and keep Vinnie from giving them any more information. They still didn't now WHY Zar was here aside from Rah not liking Gilda. Was that just it?
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Posted: Sun May 15, 2016 10:48 pm
"You're a sloth demon," Barth said, with some surprise, but he now knew the most important bits. And there was nothing left to keep him from Zar.
"There aren't any traps," Barth said, stepping up to the wall. "And no. He won't be calling anyone. I'll introduce myself to Rah another time." Barth all five of his long, articulate claws against the sigil, and dragged through as hastily as he was capable. (Which wasn't very hasty). Although Barth was relatively calm, a dark blot of thorns had begun to boil at his feet. They crept up along the restraints, making mad spirals where Zar had been desecrated.
"You're thinking of my Great Uncle. It's not his Name you tried to obliterate. If you wanted that gone, you were digging into the wrong chest."
The thorns were blackening the wall. Leaning close, Barth asked softly and with barely-contained emotion, "Zar? Can you hear me?"
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Posted: Sun May 15, 2016 11:13 pm
"N..no." Vinnie stammered in general response to both the questions he'd been asked, the fact he'd call Rah or that he'd taste any good cut up. "I.." and he didn't move to disfigure anything of the seals because that be effort too and effort took a good run up to navigate.
Barth identifying what he was jarred him deeply. He'd managed through sheer virtue of bluffing to avoid being identified by Rah for years with the other demon assuming he was simply just not a very good or sexy incubus, just zars twin all the way through and identical in every way. Rah did not like Sloth demons and hated them about on a par with how much he hated Pride demons. He'd celebrated Rasputher's rumoured death and mourned the dispelling of those rumours. He called Vinnie a sluggard on a near daily basis and it took so much work to keep him off his back. He'd managed just that morning to write out a whole shipping document and it had been a nightmarish hell heaven of a task.
He looked panicky at it all, half withdrawing into the huge bright shell on his back. "Don't tell Rah!" He managed without a stammer, genuinely concerned what would happen if he found out while not grasping he was probably in trouble anyway.
When the seal was broken Zar immediately seemed to breathe a little more deeply, twitching in his sleep. Something seemed to spark in his senses, even through the intrusive gag smelling something familiar. He opened the eye he could actually open and focused on Barth’s face with an eye more monstrous than humanoid.
Pain, there was nothing but pain. No not nothing. Something. Barth. Barth and pain. But he could think. He could think and for the first time things were clearer. He wanted to shift, he wanted to shift more than anything else. The pin was around his neck, and he inclined his head towards it as much as was possible to do so.
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Posted: Mon May 16, 2016 4:26 am
Keeping a eye on Vinnie but shifting his focus, he moved beside Barth as the demon went to smear the seal. With that gone, Zar finally stirred. It was horrid how weak and torn apart he was, and he felt every heartstring pulled to see him so weak when Calder knew Zar's strength.
Whatever Zar had to say was deprived of all of them, and Calder moved up to grip the gag about his face, being gentle as he could to pull it down. What he saw made him grit his teeth. The incubi's lips were pierces bit by bit, sewn red, as if a gag wasn't enough to keep him quiet.
"This Rah is one of the worse demon's to think this up." Zar had been used as a pawn to get back at Gilda and yet politics made the woman unable to come here to sort out her own messes. It was layers upon layers just keeping someone free, and everything rubbed him against the very fiber of his being.
"I'm going to work on these pins." Calder told Barth. "Zar, we're here, okay?" He called up, and moved to one hand to gentle touch it before looking at the pins. While he wasn't a mad scientist, he could tell they were probably there since the start of when Zar had been gone. The kepie was already thinking of the bed to place Zar, to gentle washing, and all the bandaging to get him back.
Reaching about the pens, he placed a hoof against a free surface, and pushed back, pulling the pin slowly out before tossing it to the ground. With a gentle hold on his wrist, Calder moved the hand down to Zar's side and then walked behind Barth to move to the other side.
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Posted: Mon May 16, 2016 10:36 am
The thorns curled up and up, around Zar's limbs and chest.
"You're alright," Barth said, half to Zar and half to reassure himself. "I'm going to undo what's holding your mouth closed." He gave a brief and bristly kiss to the side of Zar's muzzle, and took a long claw to each stitch, severing the connection. He stayed close.
He waited on Calder to undo the suspensions. The thorns held Zar up as each binding was undone.
Barth followed the path of the wounds, and lingered on Zar's chest, which had seen more attention than any other part of him. His Mark still glowed faintly on the ravaged surface. A skullpin hung from a necklace on Zar's neck.
With an inclination of his claw, Barth severed that too.
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Posted: Mon May 16, 2016 11:15 am
Vinnie strongly considered edging up the steps while the two strangers were preoccupied but was also concerned that they might take this as some kind of threat that he'd go get Rah. They might chase him and it was pretty far away. If they chased him he didn't know if he'd endure it all that well. In the end he did what he did best and stayed right where he was, though withdrew right inside his shell, only a set of eyestalks peering out cautiously at what was going on.
Zar woke up more and more the longer the wards were gone, still incredibly weak and stunted but able to consciously process what was going on around him. Calder got a wide eyed look when he realised what he was doing with the pins through the shackles, they'd been in place so long that the Incubus had gotten used to the pain, died back to a dull and distant twist which hurt only when he moved or pulled against the shackles.
When they were pulled out it was a new dose of agony but it was something he'd been used to of late. The sound he made was strangled by the gag and every movement set off a chain reaction of other hurts throughout the rest of him. With the pins out there was nothing more holding him up, dropping limply into the grasp thorns without even so much as a resistance, but the removal of the stitches had helped, he could open his mouth again, spitting out tar-like blood and inhaling deeply.
There was an expectant edge to the way he looked at Barth as the other demon flicked his claw and severed the pin.
The shapeshift was like an exhalation of shape and mass, Zar twisting into his much larger natural form and frankly shattering the bonds holding him. They left open wounds in their place and the injuries themselves did not recede, blood still dripping from him, but he was once again free, hanging feebly on the network of thorns like a tattered blackened fleece. His breathing was raspy and his voice when he spoke did not sound human at all, a duo of voices speaking at once demonic and guttural, one barely more than a snarl, the other a twisted hiss. The tentacles remained at his shoulders but those at least were mended, reaching to the floor to help support him.
"Barthhhh." he exhaled. "Calderrr."
Despite everything and the wrecked state of his body, he tried his best to stand, wanting nothing more than to be out of this forsaken basement.
Vinnie hadn't seen the other demon without a pin on. He didn't like what he saw and the eye stalks vanished entirely into the shell as well.
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Posted: Mon May 16, 2016 2:39 pm
"Nononono no, Zar. Don't get up. You just let the thorns hold you." He called softly bad with some alarm, not wanting Zar to strain his body by taking what little energy he had.
"Barth, you think you can move him or at least lift him to my back?" He asked, looking up at the stairs for any signs of who might be coming back. Stairs were a bit tricky for him but he could manage up at least. Down stairs was a bit freaky for him.
Turning, he looked at the shell sitting there before looking back at Barth. "If we leave him, the Rah guy is going to pin his head to the wall." He grumbled as he stood beside Zar's side to catch him if he decided to struggle and slip away from Barth's grasp.
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Posted: Mon May 16, 2016 2:48 pm
"Um," Barth said, looking suddenly started at the request that he hold or carry something. The thorns shrank to the floor, lowering Zar slowly, and then near shriveled completely.
"Lift," he repeated again. And to Zar, gently, "Yes, it's us."
Barth looked skeptically at Vinnie.
"I'm tempted to pin him to a wall myself."
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Posted: Mon May 16, 2016 2:58 pm
Zar made a sound of pained frustration and disappointment as the support of the thorns withered back, realising as it did that he couldn't support himself without them, tentacles or not. The hissing rage went out of him and he lay limply on the ground, breathing heavily.
"We need..." he hissed in that twisted combination of voices. "..to go." he didn't want to fight Rah, not here and now, even as furious and vengeful as he felt. He coughed another glob of blood and bared his bloody fangs at nothing. "home."
Vinnie had been slowly starting to creep back out of the shell and pulled right back in again abruptly as Barth commented on him "Please..please don't. I'm ... I never hurt anyone."
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Posted: Mon May 16, 2016 3:10 pm
Calder gritted his teeth at the snail-ish demon. "Yeah, then what is this?" He said, gesturing to Zar who was laying on the ground. He turned to Barth. "Kinda sad that he reminds me of a Igor." It was easy to see the knee-jerk reaction to even the smallest threats. If Rah made Zar like this, no doubt he treated his servants like trash.
"Okay, I'll try and move him best I can. If you can help ....move part of him, I just need to get under him enough to shift and get a good suction hold on him. I won't be able to keep any parts of him from dragging through." He explained.
"Yeah Zar. We're going now. I'm just going to move you a little bit to lift you, okay." He whispered to him, being gentle to stroke his main a moment before moving to his side. In front of him, Calder lifted Zar's head up and then knelt underneath his neck. If everything worked in his favor, this far up, Zar's main body would be somewhere on his back. He hoped. He tried to press his body as best he could against Zar's chest and then shifted, the fog forming underneath the incubi before the mare rose up slowly. She already administered her suction, trying to grip all she could as her body rose up and stood there, trying to gain balance from the weight. The tentacles about Zar's body were awkward to accommodate for.
"Are you going to be able to get up the steps, Barth?" She asked, bracing herself as she tried to release small sections of her skin to let parts of Zar slip a little before regripping to keep everything centered.
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Posted: Mon May 16, 2016 3:34 pm
Barth looked up the long and impossible set of stairs.
"Stay with Zar. Send Grimhold back for me, will you? He's welcome to come down."
He could use the extra time to decide what to do with Vinnie.
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Posted: Mon May 16, 2016 3:38 pm
Zar reached out for Barth without even realising he was doing it, his tail still rent with claw gouges and teeth marks but forgetting all of this in the simple response to try and lift up the sloth demon from where he was on Calder's back. He didn't make it though, the energy going out of him as quick as he summoned it, able only to hold on with his newfound back tentacles to the kelpie beneath him.
Vinnie made a little whimpering sound, not really wanting to be stuck down here with Barth and no witnesses.
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Posted: Mon May 16, 2016 3:48 pm
Calder stared at Barth a moment, reluctant, but he knew he had to get Zar out while he could before Rah showed up and blocked their escape. Going up the stairs was going to be rough enough with Zar on his back.
"Okay, I'll send him right away. Just....be careful. Keep a eye on THAT guy." Calder flared her nostrils and huffed in Vinnie's direction before turning to the steps. "Don't worry, Zar. Barth will be right behind us. Grimhold will be there to follow us. Now....uh....don't move too much." Looking up, the kelpie gave a hard swallow.
Ok. Steps time.
Pushing off, she needed enough momentum just to get up, but the steps were not made for creatures on creatures and there was little in the way for maneuvering. Heaving himself up, he felt a few times where he might fall back and pushed up onto the tiny, slender steps before making it finally to the top.
Once there, it was easy to walk out of the house back to the carriage. "Grimhold! Barth needs you in the basement. Go in there quick." He called back, moving to the carriage. There was a bit of a dilemma when Calder did get there and he looked to the carriage and the demon on his back.
How.....was this going to work? Could they get all of Zar like he was in there?
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