Welcome to Gaia! ::

I wanted to hear your thoughts on chapter 11! Is it any good? Is Carmine evil enough? Is Cosette evil enough? Is the fight scene ok? Too graphic? Any thoughts about Stella's character?

Here's a return to classic horror, DMO style. Hope you all enjoy. On another note, you can order the paper-and-ink copy of Dark Magical Orchestra now from our website. It comes complete with character bios and illustrations done by yours truly. How could you resist that. Go on, buy one. Or else Carmine will get angry.

Twelfth Movement -- The Nightmare Cage

Narshe Landraner sat alone in her laboratory, puzzling over an old box. It was long and flat, and had a peculiar picture and title posted upon the front--the picture of a manor not too dissimilar to Villa Vivikadvra. There was magic in the box to be sure, but she was pressed for a way to determine its exact nature when she had bought it. Most certainly it had not had that picture on the front when she bought it at the old antique store in Ziphlin... or did it? Narshe couldn't really be sure anymore.

Poking the box with a few wands to test its properties, she finally deemed that immediate attention was not necessary for the piece. She would just look it over in her spare time later. As for now, she had more important matters to deal with. Cosette would be waking up soon, after all. With a quick survey of the room, she finally stacked the antique on top of several other dusty boxes on a nearby shelf, and headed upstairs to the sound of her mistress's call.



Cosette awoke in her canopy bed, sun streaming in from the wide windows of the villa. She began her day as usual, summoning Narshe to dress her and bind up her hair into the black silk ribbon which sat atop her head each day.

"Cousin Nateel will be making a visit today." Narshe reminded, as she brushed Cosette's fine hair.

"I know. I've been looking forward to it." Cosette said nonchalantly. A visit from her favorite cousin was just the thing to get the pressure of recent events off of her mind. Still, something about the last time she had met Nateel was bothering her... a nagging worry that was quite impossible to place. She wondered what had become of the artifact her cousin had discovered. It was another Monolith... one like the Domesday Clock...

Cosette remembered her last encounter with Archeme, the owner of the accursed Clock. Though once old friends, the thing had thrust them apart--killing Archeme's father and driving the girl herself mad. Just when Cosette believed she had won--just when Archeme was about to wake up from her delusional sleep, that was when Knale had appeared. Knale had taken Cosette--leaving Archeme alone and dying before that sinister machine. Still, in the wake of the destruction afterwards, she had no idea what had become of her dear friend--a friend so close Cosette had thought of her as a little sister. Despite their enmity in the recent past, Cosette wished in her deepest heart that the girl was still well, somewhere.

"Alright, mistress?" Narshe cooed, noticing a dab of wetness in Cosette's eye.

"Eyeliner." Cosette's gloved hand reached up a finger to wipe away the offending spot. "Do be more careful. And don't call me 'mistress'."

"Forgive me." She continued to brush, looking up at the clock. "You seem to have been troubled lately, mistress." She did not wait for Cosette to cut her off, but continued, "I've been your mentor for eighteen years. You know you can always confide in me."

Cosette had doubted more and more her servants loyalties in the recent days. Though she knew Narshe loved her, she wondered what truly decided the vampire's actions--love for her mistress, or loyalty to the family line. Looking into Narshe's deep red eyes through her mirror, in this one moment at least, she felt at peace that her old teacher was someone to be trusted.

"Narshe," Cosette began, and the vampire stopped brushing her hair, "I worry."

"About what?" She asked, putting a hand over Cosette's shoulder.

"I worry that I don't know the world around me anymore. The people I trusted and loved all my life... they've been replaced with strangers and enemies. The things I thought I could believe in, they aren't real at all."

Narshe thought for a moment, looking for the best words to say. "No... no, the people you trusted once are different. But you're different too." She looking ahead into the vanity mirror, meeting Cosette's eyes there. "The world's changing. Unlike me, or Malgrave, you humans live and grow and change and die. It's something we respect you for--something we admire. But Cosette, listen to me." She turned to face the girl directly now, leaning over her shoulder. "If you ever love someone, and they ever love you--truly--then nothing will drive you apart." Now it was Narshe who seemed to have a tear in her eye.

"My soul is different from yours. Creatures like me cannot experience mortal love--that is part of our curse. The closest I can come to real love is in the memories I see, drinking mortal blood. I have for you, mistress, respect, and loyalty, and admiration--but I can't ever give you my heart or soul." Narshe stood, speaking as though from a textbook, perhaps to mask the waver in her voice. "I have seen many humans, generations of your mothers, learn to love--and I know that the love you share for Archeme and Nateel, and for me, is one too powerful to be broken by time or distance."

"But I will also tell you the wise words your mother Rozalina told me: it is the duty of the Empress to have the most powerful enemies, the dearest allies, and the fiercest loves. What you feel may not be a change at all, but a strengthening of the relationships you already knew. Have you considered that?" Narshe asked.

"No, no I hadn't..." Cosette looked down thoughtfully, before Narshe walked up behind and cuffed her on the back of the head.

"You're thinking way too hard for this early in the morning! If you just relax and entertain your cousin, everything will be fine. And that's the best advice I can give." She said matter of factly. Laughing at Cosette's scowl, and set her comb down upon the vanity and turned to go.

Cosette stopped her with a last question, "do you really not love me, Narshe?"

"Love?" Narshe asked, quizzically. "Love is a rather open-ended term. But yes... in some sense of the word, I suppose I do... I'm ever so fond of you, mistress." She slipped out of the door with a broad smile.



The doors were open before Nateel could knock. Cosette, seeing a small car drive up the old path to the villa had rushed down to meet them, along with Narshe, and stood waiting by the door as the woman stepped quietly down from the car. She then proceeded to take a strange chair from the trunk, opening it up and placing it upon the ground. There were two large wheels on either side of the device, and two smaller ones in the front for support. Nateel sat this on the ground by the door as the two approached her, and proceeded to help another figure from the car.

"Cosette, so good to see you again." Nateel said, though she sounded as though she were exerting herself quite a bit. "Please, give me a hand," she called up to the front.

The driver's door opened to reveal a man in a long coat and familiar round-brimmed hat. A gleam of metal flashed under his hat which Cosette remembered too well not to call out.

"Uncle Jake!" Cosette was overjoyed to see that he had survived the accident, but even more to realize who else must also be with him.

"'ello Cos'" he said in a way that conveyed a smile. With a tip of his hat to Narshe, the man stepped carefully to where Nateel was, and gingerly picked up the second passenger in his arms, placing her into the wheeled chair.

"Archeme," Cosette looked for something to say. The girl she had known all her childhood sat before her like a puppet with its strings cut, only her neck lifted up to look into Cosette's eyes, and her lips moved to form a smile. Tears formed in Cosette's eyes. "I'm... sorry..."

"Cosette, come here and give me a hug. Nateel too." The three embraced each other as best they could over Archeme's chair.

"Come inside, all of you. There's plenty of catching up to do once we're out of this sun." Narshe wiped her brow, waving them toward the door of the villa.

The four followed her inside, and into the parlor of the house, where Nateel and Cosette found seats, and Old Jake parked Archeme's wheelchair.

"I'll get some snacks and tea." Narshe bowed out of the room, and Jake followed, pulling out his familiar cigarette case and walking towards the front door.

Now alone, the three girls began to talk excitedly. Cosette's first question was to ask Archeme what had happened.

"That day, something broke, down in my nerves." Archeme made a motion backward with her neck, "so, I'm sort of stuck like this now."

"That's terrible." Cosette couldn't image how it would be to live like that.

"Oh, it's not too bad. The clock can't control me now like it used to, and I have you to thank for that." Archeme smiled warmly, trying to allay Cosette's doubts as to her sincerity. "Besides, I can still control machines, so its not too much of an inconvenience." As she said this, a robotic hand uncurled from the side of the chair and pushed her square-rimmed glasses back up her nose a bit, then retreated back to its prior resting place.

"She was scared to come to you at first... the last thing she remembered was dropping you from that balcony," Nateel related. "But when I showed her that you were alive and well, by your recent letters, she couldn't wait to come and see you again."

"I'm so glad you did, I was worried to no end over you." Cosette breathed a sigh of relief. "But what became of the clock?" she asked at last.

"It still ticks...I don't think its something humans can make or unmake, Cosette. Even then, its just a meter. Stopping a clock doesn't stop the time that drives it." Archeme said matter-of-factly.

"So, you're just going to live with it?" Cosette asked, a tinge of worry in her voice.

"Cosette, Archeme, we've all been through alot, but don't get too caught up in the past. Is this a reunion for sisters or not?" Nateel broke this train of conversation off. "Narshe's gone to get tea, why don't we get out one of the old board games we used to play, and enjoy the afternoon like we used too?"

"Well said." Archeme nodded. "But you'll have to roll the dice for me, Cosette."

"Fair enough." The heiress breathed a sigh, unsure if she could accept her old friend's condition as well as Archeme herself was. "We've moved them all into Narshe's room, to clear out space. I'll get one and be right back."

Cosette skipped off to Narshe's laboratories, leaving her cousin and friend alone for a moment while she searched for a game. There, upon the far shelf of the room near the vampire Arcanist's workbench, sat a large array of boxes containing various games of different types. Cosette did not stop to look too hard at any in particular, but grabbed the top box on the stack, eager to return to her surrogate sisters.



"So what game is this?" Nateel looked at the illustration of an old secluded mansion on the front of the box Cosette had brought, and proceeded to read the blurb on the back. "Haunted Haunt of DOOM," she began impressively, "venture forth into the unknown depths of doom. Undead roam the decrepit manor, feasting on the flesh of the unwary living, as Demons prowl the corridors eager to snatch up the souls of careless wanderers. Can you survive the horrors of the haunt and solve the mysteries within?"

"That sounds like Cosette's normal life." Archeme laughed, and Cosette shot a playful scowl over to her, laughing as well. She sipped some of the hot tea that Narshe had brought through a straw.

"Well, open it up." Cosette urged, with another chuckle. "I'll to put you two through what I have to live with every day."

"Alright, let's play." Natee's black eyes looked down at the box with interest as she pulled the worn lid from its place.

As the box slipped apart, the lights in the room died, snuffed out by a cold chill that seemed to seep from the box. Drapes pulled themselves shut, and the room was cast into pitch darkness.

"What is this?" Archeme's voice was drowned out by an eerie sort of whooshing sound that emanated from the box, as though it were trading the fresh air of the villa for the stale stuff inside the box.

As though nothing had happened, the drapes opened, the candles reignited, and the sounds stopped, leaving the manner just as it was before. Nateel laughed.

"Nice joke, Cosette." She set the lid down on the parlor table, then looked disappointedly into the empty box. "But what did you do with the game?"

"Eh..." Cosette's eyes darted around the room. "I have no idea at all what that was..." Cosette looked at the box more scrutinizingly, then ran a hand over the lid gingerly, as though trying to feel something within it. Her golden eyes widened.

"What is it?" Archeme asked, a quiver of fright in her voice.

"I think we've just let something into the manor... something dangerous." Cosette swallowed.

"So what do we do?" Archeme's neck craned around nervously.

"It sounds like an adventure." Nateel's face lit up. "We have to find whatever got out, and put it back."

"What are you--did you not hear me say the word 'dangerous'?" Cosette asked. "I said it loud, and pretty clear. I'll say it one more time: Dangerous. Did you hear it that time?"

"Pah!" Nateel waved a hand to shoo Cosette away. "You're up for it, right Archeme?"

"Er... um..." Cosette and Nateel were both staring her down, and the poor mechanic in her wheelchair felt awfully pressured to say something. "I think we should find Narshe and Jake."

"An excellent idea." Nateel nodded. "You want to call for her, Cosette?"

Cosette agreed, calling out loudly for her servant. "Naarsheeeeeee!" Her voice rang through the villa. The silence that followed, though no more deathly or unnerving than the silence of a midsummer's afternoon in the dusty villa, seemed ever more sinister as they waited for a response. Nothing came.

"That's odd..." Cosette called once more, and still no response came.

Archeme shut her eyes, as though concentrating on something. She opened them again with a sigh, "Jake seems unavailable too. Either he's too far or... offline."

"Well..." Nateel put her hands on her hips and looked around, black eyes darting eagerly across the foyer. "I want to go find out what's happened. Something is definitely up." She began walking off in the direction of the library.

"But what about me and Archeme?" Cosette asked, grabbing the handles of the younger girl's wheelchair and hurrying after Nateel, who had already disappeared through a crack in the double doors of the library.

The library was dark, and empty, stacked floor to ceiling with ancient texts of dark magic and forgotten histories. The curtains in the room were closed, plunging the whole thing into a deep darkness. "Nateel?" Cosette and Archeme called weakly, looking around the room. The shadows seemed more oppressive than normal, as though something were watching just out of sight.

The sound of another side door clicking shut told Cosette that Nateel had already left the library, probably still searching for Narshe. Cosette snapped her fingers, and the drapes at the far end of the room drew themselves, flooding in light.

"Agh!" Archeme yelled in surprise, causing Cosette to jump as well.

"What?! What is it?" She cried, looking around frantically.

"I... I saw something move at the far wall." Archeme inclined her head to point. The stale library was completely still and silent. Specks of dust floating the air caught the streaming sunlight coming in the window, but no sounds could be heard except the fast-paced beating of the two girls' own hearts.

"I'll go check it out. Just wait here." Cosette walked forward to the place Archeme noted, and saw another door slightly ajar. Nateel couldn't have left the room twice... something else was indeed here.

"Cos--!" A high squeal was cut off. The girl whirled around, but when she looked to where she had left Archeme, the girl was gone, chair and all.

"Archeme!" Cosette called, looking around the large library. "Nateel!" She cried out again in some frustration. After exhausting her breath with yelling, she had to face the truth--she was indeed alone. She shut her eyes and chanted a short incantation, as she knelt down on the library floor and traced a few gashes in the wood with her fingernail. The simple divination confirmed her worst fears--she was alone in the mansion with one other being--and it was no one that she knew.

The air in the library seemed stale and unnatural, as did the light, and everything about the place. Something about this entire situation was just false--as though a huge illusion were crowding her eyes and ears, and she was powerless to wave it away. There was no magic in the air--she would have sensed that easily. But what she did feel was something alien and unreal--a presence of something from 'outside', wherever that might be.

A soft gurgling sound came from an indistinct point beyond the door Archeme had seen something at, and Cosette--now angry on top of her confusion, blasted the door apart with a motion of her hand. Beyond, a hallway Cosette couldn't quite remember lead towards a single door, which rattled eerily. As she walked down the hallway, the young empress felt as though a thousand evil eyes were staring in upon her, waiting for her to trip or turn her back so they could vulture in and devour her.

As she approached the door, she cast a few protective enchantments upon herself, making her glow with her own sort of dark radiance. Perhaps that would scare away whatever was watching her. With another spell, the door at the end of the hall was rent apart in a peal of tearing metal. She stepped over the wreckage into a wider room, with four doors. She was definitely no longer in Villa Vivikadvra.

"I won't do it! I won't I won't I won't!" She heard a voice shouting from somewhere beyond. She had no idea who it might be through the distance and muffling of doorways.

Cosette blasted apart the door in the direction the voice came from, only to reveal another hallway, with another door at its end. She walked faster down the hall, ripping apart the door with her destructive magicks to reveal another similar room with four doors.

The voice was growing louder, but the room had not changed. She followed another hall to another similar room, and another and another. The only difference in any room, down to the marks her shoes left on the floor, was the growing in volume of the voice. It was a female voice. It was...

"Nateel!" Cosette called, and the shouting stopped.

"Cosette! Cosette, you have to escape from he--" The voice was cut off by a loud crunching noise and a scream. Then silence, save for the frightened beating of the witch's own heart.

Without thinking, Cosette smashed through the last door to reveal yet another hallway before her. Once more completely silent. "Agh!" She yelled in frustration, not sure what she had expected to find. Alright... think about this, think about this... she tried to calm herself down and think clearly. She was trapped in some illusion. Not a magical cage, but a cage forged of her own senses. Nothing was to be trusted here, not even Nateel's pleading voice. She needed to master her own senses.

In a dream, one sees and feels what he wishes. Even though those things may not feel under the control of the dreamer, they are still under his power. If I can take control of this dream... she thought hard, closing her eyes. She imagined the door before her, the one that would take her out of this place.

Her eyes flashed open, and before here there it stood. A large chamber of stone separated her from a tall double door, carved of obsidian inlaid in wrought iron, that her heart told her led to freedom from this cage of visions. But in the back of her mind, those eyes that had been watching her, they were so much more real now. She felt that if she could just look beyond the corners of her eyes, they would be there watching her. She knew that she was not alone. Cosette wanted to turn around, and tell them to face her, but a primal fear within was stopping her. At last, she spun about to face the entity that had dogged her here, expecting honestly to find only the stone wall of the chamber within which she now stood.

A horrific emptiness greater than anything she had ever seen laid before the girl's bright eyes. As she looked into the infinite blackness in fear and wonder, the darkness looked back. A great eye opened in the darkness, and the gurgling of hungry tongues in darkness sounded through the stone chamber. Tentacles of dark matter reached out of the blackness and gripped the room, beginning to consume it, as more eyes opened and more hungry maws ground their teeth in the nothingness beyond.

Cosette's instincts decided for her what she needed to do. She turned and ran as fast as she could for the door. The room was so much longer than it seemed and the darkness behind her much faster than its growing, gripping tentacles would suggest. It spread like spilled ink, devouring the place as those thousands of jaws nipped and gnashed at the girl's soft ankles.

A tooth connected, and cut into her heel, spilling a trail of blood upon the floor. As the darkness stopped to fight within itself, each maw trying to lap up Cosette's sweet blood, she made it to the large doors, and pulled at last.

They were locked.

In a haze of fright and desperation, she flung spell after spell at the high door, all to no avail. The darkness finished its business, and the thousand eyes looked in hungrily once more at their prey, slipping once more across the floor, tongues slurping and jaws clacking as tentacles snaked out and over and between the stones of the rapidly vanishing floor.

Cosette pressed her back against the door, casting black magics futilely at the pressing darkness, which was inches from devouring her whole. Tendrils of black matter reached forward for the first taste of young blood.

"Cosette!" A voice cried out to her from somewhere beyond the door, and she heard a click from the other side. The door pressed open beside her, and she felt a hand on her shoulder, strong, pulling her out and away, back into the world of light.



"But what did you do with the game?" Nateel stood with the lid of the box in her hands, looking disappointedly into the empty bottom half.

"The game..." Cosette fell back into her chair, breathing heavily. "Did you see it....?"

"Cosette, are you alright?" Archeme gave her a worried look. "What happened?"

"What happened? What happened to you two? Weren't you..." She noticed the blank expressions on the other two girls' faces and stopped. "I think I'm just a bit tired. Do you mind if I take a minute to myself?" She took another deep breath.

"Of course, of course. Are you sure you're alright?" Nateel asked, sincerely concerned.

"I'll be fine. Thanks." Cosette nodded wiping a cold sweat from her brow.

She walked off to her own room and shut the door, sitting down upon her bed. Kicking off her shoes and socks she found a deep wound upon one heel, like a fang had ripped through her flesh. A trickle of blood still seeped from the cut.



"What do you think happened to her?" Archeme looked up to Nateel.

"I have no idea, but I hope she's alright." Nateel sighed. "She's probably just so excited to see you well that her nerves can't take it." The ascetic looked down into the empty box with a grim scowl.

Just where Archeme couldn't see, a thousand eyes looked reprovingly back from the shadows within the box.

True, but Cosette acts much differently around Archeme and Nateel than she does around other people. This is just another dimension of her personality, though one we don't see too much.


Well, it's one thing to stand and fight, but another to avoid being swallowed alive. Even Cosette gets scared out of her wits when scaring down an Eldrich God of the Unknown. Do you think that it's really an awkward spot, or were you just surprised?


Good point. I'll look back and fix this one (on the main site, at least. I hate having to maintain two copies)

Also, I've already started working on Chapter 13, and it's looking to be a great one already. Like you suggested, I've decided to embellish on Hylie a bit...



So, now your worst fears about DMO sounding like Disgaea are confirmed...

Alright, this week's Dark Magical Orchestra is complete! Hard to believe I've been doing this for thirteen weeks already...

Anyway, this chapter leads up to the next chapter, which will close off DMO's second Movement--and consequently its second Book!

This may be my favorite chapter so far. I really enjoyed creating the world of hell. There is a more comprehensive article on the classifications of demons in the character section of the main DMO site, for those interested.

Happy reading!

Thirteenth Movement - Hylie's Inferno

Hylie Mignon sat in her room, bored as usual with the everyday goings-on of Villa Vivikadvra. Oh, what I wouldn't give to be back in hell again, fighting alongside Master Knale. She thought to herself, cursing her fate as a slave to a mere mortal. Still, this too was her master's will. She would abide with it for the time being. Her cold cell was hung with tattered posters promoting the Second World War effort on both sides--little trinkets she had collected in her time here in the human world. She did love the war era so... such a shame to see it go. The world at war reminded the demon of her own home, though humanity was, even at the height of its bloodthirsty warmaking, quite kind compared to the overlords of hell and their terrible armies.

Hylie was not alone at the moment. Her own minion, a short green demon that perched on one warty leg and had a huge mouth sat on her shelf, awaiting orders. She was just about to ask it to sing something, when Cosette entered her dungeon room. A rare occasion indeed.

"Slave, we're--" Cosette paused as she noticed the little green demon perched on Hylie's dresser. "What's this?"

"My minion, Gruphul." She spoke proudly. "He's a level fifteen Mourner class demon." The little demon on the dressed puffed up its rotund, armless body as best it could to match its master's pride.

"Level fifteen? What do you mean by that?" Cosette mused, poking the green demon with a finger and causing it to topple off the dresser with a whimper.

Hylie gave a short chuckle, "of course, a mortal like you wouldn't understand levels... they're a daemonic rating of one's personal power. When you're a pathetic human, all of our kind must seem equally godlike in power." Hylie laughed, and Cosette just nodded, watching the little demon wheeze on the floor. "But in fact, there's a great difference between us. To stratify this difference, as well as to measure one's own personal growth, we've created a system of levels and classes."

"Fascinating." Cosette said disinterestedly.

"Hm... you're probably wondering what level I am, aren't you? After two-thousand years of grinding battles alongside Master Knale, I'm level four-thousand six-hundred and seventy-three. And I'm already over seventy-five percent of the way to my next level." She gave another proud chuckle.

"Oh really." The heiress gave a thoughtful look off towards one of Hylie's posters. "And what level is Knale?"

"Heh, that's a good question." Hylie shrugged, "Overlord Knale is a Strategist class demon, and they can take feats to hide their level pretty early on. Why anyone would waste a talent on something that could only reduce your prestige is beyond--"

"Egh, this is starting to sound like one of those tedious Math-based role-playing games Archeme tried to pull me into once. Remind me not to go to hell." Cosette shuddered. "Anyway, slave, Narshe and I are going to Africa--to fill that invitation we had with Tania and her master, Nidhoggr. You'll be staying behind here."

"What!?" Hylie shouted, enraged, "always leaving me behind! You bind me in this body, and then deny me any chance to fight--even in your service"

"I'm not here to listen to your ranting, so shut up. An uncouth creature like you would only cause an uproar during the otherwise pleasant safari. Besides, I don't want you trophy hunting anything we encounter." Cosette thought back to visions of Hylie carrying home piles of corpses from previous battles. It was a habit she and Narshe had broken the demon of quickly, but which had never fully "gone away". Cosette could see smuggled skulls and finger-bones hidden under Hylie's bed even now. "Just entertain yourself somehow. Get your Mourner to sing you a sad song if it hurts that much." Cosette turned and left the demon's room with an exasperated sigh.

Hylie sat alone for a few minutes, before finally helping her one-legged minion to stand back on the dresser. "Inspire me to sleep, slave." She spoke irritably. Obeying her, the little demon opened its beak, and bellowed forth a powerful melody, not unlike heavy metal music, which it knew its master preferred. As the notes flowed in and around Hylie's ears, her eyes became heavy, and she slept soundly upon her bed of broken glass.



"Ugh!" Hylie was awoken by the feeling of a sharp object being wedged into her back. The pain flowed through her again as she rolled over to face another being standing over her bed, a high heel raised up and ready to stomp down again over her.

"Heliska?" She spoke groggily, looking up at dark blue braided hair cascading over milky white skin. Heliska's eyes were a shimmering sky blue color, and her face bore two tattoos, one of a tear beneath the right eye, and another of a diamond over the left. A faint kind of chorus seemed to surround her, like eight or nine sad voices each chanting different words all at once. But it was a very weak sound--one too weak for Hylie to pay attention to.

"Haha," Heliska crowed, "you look as ridiculous as Master said you did in that body, Askimilar!" She jumped down gracefully from the top of Hylie's bed, and continued laughing, her black robes brushing the ground as she stood.

"What are you doing here?" Hylie sprung up, sitting at attention cross-legged on the bed.

"You've been summoned." Heliska said pointedly. Her voice was beauty itself, immaculate and pure. "Come with me, Lord Knale requests our presence."

"And how are we to get back to hell from here." Hylie asked, arms crossed. Then she puzzled, "how did you get here in the first place?"

"I learned portal magicks recently, so now I can summon myself and others to the human world and back." the demon explained.

"Uncommon skills for a Mourner." Hylie shrugged. Heliska began casting her spell, hands glowing a greenish blue, and turned the entire room into a wash of fluorescent magics. Diagrams of daemonic origin crisscrossed over the stone floors and ceilings, and Hylie's posters lifted from the walls as a swirling wind picked up, fighting to move about in the cramped chamber. At last, the diagram completed itself, and a bolt of red lightning seemed to fire from the roof of the room, connecting to the bottom, capturing Heliska, Hylie, and the diminutive Gruphul in a flash of unholy light.



The smell of brimstone seared the air, and blasting winds brushed through the air of a windswept plain, extending to the horizon in any direction. The earth underfoot was cracked and dry, and a hellish sun beat down from overhead. All around, sounds of battle raged. Metal crashed upon metal, shouts of victory and death shrilled the air, and parched earth lapped up the spilled blood of the defeated eagerly, its thirst never quenched.

The demons fighting in this field were all under Knale's command--all bearing the same crests upon their necks. Each fought under the shadow of her grand palace of twisted black stone, eager to become strong enough to gain entry to the place and become a true servant of the Overlord. Hylie surveyed them all. So pathetically weak... she could probably wipe the entire plain clear alone in a few minutes if she had wished. These demons were too weak to provide her with any substantial training though.

"Ah, so good to be back!" Hylie reveled in the gross heat of the sun, which scorched her rapidly regenerating human flesh over and over. Heliska beckoned her toward Knale's palace, and the towering double gates of black crystal opened automatically at their approach.

The first place they passed in the palace was the torture chambers, where the low-ranking demons of Knale's army trained their powers upon captives who were too weak to be worth killing, but strong enough to be worthy practice. Hylie herself had often been ordered to capture as many weak demons as possible for this purpose. She would probably bring one or two back for Gruphul to practice killing, if she had the opportunity. Wails of pain coupled with cruel laughter ran through the pitch black chamber. It was totally dark within Knale's palace--since demons need no light to see--but it was still unbearably and uncomfortably hot.

Heliska and Hylie walked on through the torture chambers and into the arenas of the palace, where middling demons were trying their strengths against one another. Higher ranked demons watched the spectacle of the arena intently, each eager to pick out the best of the survivors to join his league of personal minions. Hylie spotted a familiar face in the darkness, and called out to it as she passed by.

"Valdimap! Oy!" She waved a hand. An unnaturally tall and thin demon crooked its head around at the sound of her voice, which bellowed like a Destroyer demon's should, despite her mortal form.

Faster than she could see, the demon was standing beside her. "Askimilar, is that you?" Valimap's voice was a dark hiss of spite, and he was bent almost double in order to see the two of them face to face. "Slacking off in the mortal world, or so I hear?" His skin was a sallow yellow, with glowing green eyes sunken deep in wrinkled sockets. He wore ragged robes held to his skin by an array of belts and straps, defining clearly his gaunt form.

"It's Master's work." Hylie spat. "And humiliating me like this."

"Oh, I like this body." Valdimap licked his sharp jaws, looking Hylie up and down. "So soft, so tender... so many vital spots..." a flash of something shone in his eyes, and Hylie felt the tips of three knives held at her stomach in one hand, and two more like scissors across her neck. A third and fourth and fifth hand, previously hidden from view, leveled weapons at various other spots on her body. "Can I cut you up, just for practice?"

"Not now." Heliska stepped past and pushed Valdimap back with one hand. Apparently she was as strong as he, despite the difference in their builds. "We have a summons from Knale, and we're off to fulfill it."

"Forgive me." Valdimap shrugged, and the knives were suddenly not in his hands anymore. His extra arms had vanished back to wherever they were before. "Jackal's instincts, you know. What summons? Can I come?" The idea of the inner houses--forbidden to all but the highest of Knale's servants--tantalized each soldier of the lower ranks.

"Don't be absurd." Heliska growled, "waste more of our time, and I'll sing a song for your death, wretch."

"Now hold on." Hylie turned to her, "I'll decide what MY minions can and can't do. I'll bring him along." She made a beckoning motion to the Jackal class demon, and he followed eagerly. "It's a shame I can't bring you into the human world to serve me." Hylie looked back to Valdimap, "But Master wants my stronger servants to keep training here. She's given me this instead." Hylie gave Gruphul a hard kick in the jaw, and the little demon grumbled something incoherent.

"Oh, I made this for you a while ago." Valdimap held out a lump of something wrapped in dirty rags, and the Destroyer took it as they walked on throughout the arenas.

"Ah, fruitcake." Hylie gulped the mass down in a single chomp, wrapping and all. "Y' know, wh'n I go to reshtrns' in th' hum'n w'rld," she swallowed, "and order the things that we eat here in hell, I'm always surprised how close they get it to the real thing."

"Fascinating." Heliska sighed, leading the way into another chamber. This one was a forge filled with weapons and armors of all sizes. Some were the massive plates of destroyers, or the enchanted robes Mourners would don, or even a collection of a hundred pearlescent knives, each coated in its own special type of poison.

"I've been saving for those." Valdimap pointed at the set, shouting slightly over the clanging of forges and the shriek of steam and flame. Destroyer demons toiled, keeping the fires of the forge glowing bright, while Jackals sculpted steel in their hands to form beautiful and deadly implements of every shape and size.

"Have you bought new songbooks for your subordinate yet?" Heliska asked Hylie, looking down to Gruphul whose eyes were wide with excitement as he hopped around on his tiny one leg, trying to get a good look at the forges that were too tall for him to see.

"I was going to buy armor." Hylie was eyeing some expensive bracers--a set enchanted to increase a Destroyer's strength.

"No, no, no!" Heliska shouted over the din of the ringing forges. "You want as many songs as you can memorize early on." She led Hylie to a stall in the armory where a sultry-looking Mourner sat upon fur cushions, burning incense beside a stack of books she had scribed.

"Heliska, what do you want?" The demoness batted her eyelashes, tossing back a lock of red and black hair with one hand, "I can't write songs for Mourners of your rank. You have to compose your own."

"Hey, I'm the customer here." Hylie stepped past. She grabbed Gruphul by his ears and hoisted him up on the edge of the table. "I need to buy songs for this Mourner."

The demon behind the stall gave a loud, long cackle, and her entire form dissolved into a green blob with one long leg, several short tentacles, and an array of eight laughing mouths, not too unlike Gruphul, though much larger. One of the mouths started moving rhythmically again, and her immaculately beautiful humanlike form returned to cover her. "Ah, haha, I'm sorry. I was laughing so hard I lost tempo on my Requiem of Masking. But no, really. You're spending money on a minion like that? It only has one mouth! How are you going to sing duets like that?" She looked at Gruphul critically. "Better grow more soon, or you won't be able to use the more powerful songs."

Hylie's eyes narrowed.

"Alright, alright!" The Mourner shopkeeper chuckled again to herself. "I don't stock songbooks for creatures like that, but I think I can compose you something simple for a few heads." She pulled a clipboard and a fountain pen from under one of her cushions and took up a writing position. "What sort of song do you want?"

"Something that will completely destroy--" Hylie started, but Heliska cut her off.

"Discouraging Dirge." She put in. "So he can turn away attacks from other demons. And the Panic Lieder, to deal with Strategists and Fatespinners." Heliska thought. She shook her head at Hylie disappointedly. "You've been raising this poor mourner to have one large mouth, so he can sing really loudly. What you really want are many small mouths, so you can sing several songs at once. Most powerful songs are going to be duets or trios--the thing will be totally helpless soon. Look at me--I'm singing no less than nine songs right now."

"Hmph." Hylie took the sheets of paper from the demoness, and put a few black coins into her hand.

"Remember to burn them after you memorize the songs." The Mourner behind the stall whispered to Gruphul. "That way other Mourners won't be able to profit from your master's gifts." Gruphul gave an excited nod, and started looking over the papers immediately. Before he could finish reading the second song, Hylie folded them both and placed them into her pocket.

"You can read back at the Villa." She shoved her minion off of the table and continued walking through the palace towards the last door barring them from Knale's chamber.



Grand High Overlord Knale Sye Kolor sat on a pile of luxurious cushions at the back of a high-domed chamber. The entire throne room was circular, with a pit inset at its center. From her high seat at the far end of the room, Knale watched her generals fight amongst themselves in the room's center. Unlike the demons in the previous chambers, however, these minions were too valuable to let fight to the death. Rather, they fought at Knale's behest, so that she could study their strengths and weaknesses, and coach them to become stronger.

Daemonic artworks--scenes of death and battle and glory--were painted directly onto the black walls of the chamber, which was filled heavy incense--almost enough to block out the smell of death and blood that filled this entire world. As Hylie, Heliska, Valdimap, and Gruphul entered, a bored looking Knale nodded her head lazily to them, beckoning them close. Other high ranking demons--the most powerful under Knale's command, sat at tables around the perimeter of the room. Eating, drinking, arguing and reveling, while a large mourner sang songs at one end of the room, her one voice emulating an entire band at once, and doing an excellent job.

"Rikjak," Knale turned back to a diminutive demon beside her, wrapped completely in oversized black and silver robes, and spoke, "my prepared spells." She held out a hand. The little demon fumbled around in his robes, and pulled forth a deck of cards, each charged with a different work of magic. These he placed into his Master's hand.

Hylie and her cohorts made their way around the room, past the training arena set in its center, and came to kneel before the pile of cushions Knale rested upon. Gruphul couldn't quite figure out how to kneel on his one leg, so Hylie simply tipped him over on his face for the proper effect. On closer inspection, the cushions Knale sat upon were sewn of demon skin--the high quality pelts of other Overlords she had slain. Hylie could still feel the anger and hatred many of them had, even beyond death, radiating from these trophies upon which her master smiled. Hylie grinned as well, reveling in the power of her Overlord.

"We are here, Master Knale." Heliska said at last, head knelt low.

"The four of you, just as expected." Knale gave a calm smile. "I have a little business to attend to in..." Knale reached around and pulled a heavy watch chained to her cloak out from behind her. "Only thirty seconds. But it will be so deliciously amusing. Stay to watch, won't you?" She looked for a moment into Valdimap's eyes.

"But of course, Master." Heliska and every other head in the room turned as the doors to the central chamber burst open with a huge crashing noise.

There, in the open doorway, a seething Destroyer demon stood. Black-plated skin burned like brimstone, and red eyes blazed inside a head that was more teeth than brains. The demon took several strides forward. Easily twelve feet tall, its back was bent over to enter. The beast's body rippled with muscle and sinewy flesh, and its skin seemed to be on fire, continually smoldering away and regenerating back.

"Magnamanthus..." Hylie whispered, "what's he here for?"

"He's reached the power of an Overlord-rank demon recently. The word is that he won't continue to serve Knale as a minion anymore." Heliska whispered back. "Everyone knew it was a matter of time before things came to this."

"Exciting..." Valdimap hissed, "I've never seen a Strategist fight before."

"None of us have. They don't fight, do they?" Hylie asked. "Strategists only have powers to support other demons, I thought."

"Shhh, just watch." Heliska elbowed her.

"Magnamanthus, welcome back." Knale nodded to the demon. Her calm voice seemed to carry through the hall. "I trust your training has been going well."

"Knale." The demon glowered, his voice as threatening and powerful as his form. "For six thousand years I've been your minion. You must know what I've come for today."

"I do. And its a shame you can't be talked out of your delusion of being more powerful than I. You know I can see the future, Magnamanthus. I've already won."

"By the deepest codes of hell, if I slay you, all your power and minions will fall to me to control--as a Grand Overlord of Hell." He spoke slowly, driving home the old words.

"Such a shame to slay such a good minion." Knale's face remained as nonchalant as ever, but a definite tinge of cruel glee ran through her words. Like any demon, the Overlord too was eager to display her prowess on the battlefield.

Magnamanthus seemed not one to spare words. He simply took his place grimly on the far end of the arena sunken into Knale's room.

"Oh, and Rikjak, my gloves." Knale spoke again to the little demon bside her, and he fumbled around in his robes again, producing two pale, leathery gloves. "It's common knowledge that a Destroyer's skin can only be pierced by weapons wielded with human hands," Knale slipped on her human-skin gloves. "But don't expect that to protect you."

Magnamanthus seemed impatient, rather than worried. "Someone who hides behind their minions--what kind of master are you, without a demon's honor to fight a straight fight? You're as weak as a human yourself." He spat venomously.

"Let's test that. Perhaps it is so." Knale walked carefully down the steps of her own arena. With her hands hidden beneath her cloak, and the hood turned up, she seemed to float like some sort of wraith. "Take care to watch, slaves." Knale called to all of her generals. "Witness and fear your master's power firsthand."

The two gladiators stood and looked toward one another for a long moment. At one end, the hulking brute embodying destruction itself. At the other, the mysterious Strategist, calm and confident.

Finally Magnamanthus took the first strike. He charged forward, one fist raised in attack. A spiral of flames and black matter streaked ahead and after him, tearing apart the space around and searing away air as he struck into the ground where Knale stood with amazing speed and efficiency.

Just as his fist struck the ground, Knale's cloak exploded outward in a flurry of flung blades--red hot knives dripping with various acids and poisons. Knale herself stood behind her attacker, with a speed so inhuman it was as though she had teleported there. Her cloak breezed back in the speed she had moved, revealing about twenty more knives, grasped ten in each hand, held at the ready.

"Ah...." Valdimap sank to his knees, clutching his wrists in both hands.

"What's wrong?" Hylie looked over at her minion, who seemed to be in real pain.

"I don't know... it feels like my hands were torn off..." He was breathing heavily, teeth gritted.

"Jackal's skills?" Magnamanthus sneered, turning around. The knives were lodged in his chest, but their poisons were not enough alone to take down the destroyer. "Is that the best a Strategist can muster?"

Knale glanced up at Gruphul, and then shouted out to Magnamanthus. "It's useless, can't you see?" Her opponent gripped his ears and sank to his knees--all will to fight lost. His will to resist the poisons fled him as well, and they began to eat away at the hard outer flesh of his skin, exposing weak points across his frame.

"A Discouraging Dirge?" Heliska looked on interestedly. Gruphul writhed on the ground. His voice taken from him. "How could she know that he would have that song just memorized...?"Knale sang the song so much more perfectly than even she ever could. Heliska was a mix of admiration and jealousy.

"Every minion swearing fealty to me adds to my power." Knale's voice was plain speech, but she hit perfectly the tones of the dirge as she spoke, keeping up its demoralizing power upon her foe. "You're so pathetic--I hope your peers take this as a lesson in humility. Once you die, I'll cut out your iron heart and bind it to myself. Then I'll be able to draw out your strength whenever I wish." She chirped with glee. "I've waited six thousand years for it. I saw this day coming from the moment you entered my palace, you know?"

"No... wait." The demon choked, his body falling limp, unable to obey the rage within his heart. "I can... I can still serve you."

"I know." Knale smiled. "You will." She flicked a card out from her cloak and held it aloft. In a burst of purple flames, the card combusted of its own power. From the sky above, a torrent of blackness burst into being, sweeping down upon Magnamanthus's form, coalescing into a drill that burrowed down into the back of his body. As he watched intently from near Knale's throne, the little demon Rikjak's body seemed to sieze up for a moment.

Knale kept speaking, keeping him under the spell of her voice. "A Mourner is stronger because of her many mouths, or a Jackal for his many arms, or even a fatespinner for his great knowledge. However, a Strategist can put each of these pieces together. My power isn't bound by the number of demons I've slain or training done--it is decided by the strength of my servants."

Magnamanthus's eyes rolled back, as Knale plunged a fist into the crater in his back and pulled forth a shimmering lump of iron. In the darkness of the chamber, it radiated malice and power like a beacon.

The dry earth which made up the dust of the arena seeped up the blood of the slain demon, and his flesh dissolved into dust which whisked away into nowhere. A few moments later, a small demon, similar in shape, but far smaller in size, remained in his place. Knale picked the little demon up in one hand and held it aloft, to a chorus of laughter. "It is by each of your powers together that we shall rise to master all of hell!" She shouted out, raising the heart and the tiny demon higher. The crowd of her generals roared approval for several minutes.

"Yes!" Hylie shouted, "All of hell will be ours!" She called, alongside the other demons of her rank.

Knale beckoned for Rikjak, and handed the tiny demon to him. "Put this one in the torture chambers." She nodded, and the short robed demon scurried off towards the outer halls.

Knale stowed the iron heart under her cloak, and walked back to her throne, falling back upon it with a sigh. "As you were." She called back to the rest of her generals. "Now, you four," the overlord motioned for Hylie and her group to come back. "How was the show? All well, I assume?"

"Egh..." Valdimap was still massaging his four spindly wrists, and Gruphul's tongue lolled out of his large mouth stupidly.

"You'll feel fine soon--and much stronger. You just helped to defeat an Overlord-rank demon, after all." Knale smiled down at them. "But I didn't call you here just for you to see that. I already have confidence in your loyalty."

"How can we serve you, my lord?" Hylie bowed again.

"I have a special task for you and your comrades, Askimilar... in the human world. A continent known as Africa..." Knale began. Hylie grinned wide.

To be continued in chapter fourteen...

Okay. How on earth did Narshe manage to summon a demon that strong?
-LD

Uh...well, don't hate me for this KiyoKyo, but...it sounds a helluva lot like Disgaea to me....
-LD

I still think the "levels" might be a bit too much for a story like DMO. Maybe "tiers" or something, but "level" sounds way too juvenile for the work.

Consider it, please? I think this is the only thing so far--in the past 12 chapters--that has really compromised your work.

Love and Vale,
-LD

Just a few little unimportant grammar bugs. Which you picked up on in your editing.

Right now what we need to work on--in both our works--is making the stories seem both fantastic and plausible, and of course, part of that is word choice. Another is character origin, which you might want to elaborate on--especially in Hylie's case--but also with Narshe and Knale and maybe even (I can't believe I forgot his name) the vampire breeder guy. (Please don't hate me for this!)

Personally, I'd like to see more of Cosette's sister (Meribelle?), and this Carmine person. Or persona, perhaps....

And actually, I can't find my Disgaea 2 right now, so I'm not playing it at all. And need I remind you that your audience is going to be a fan of manga, which has always had very close ties with the gaming world. "Levels" might "work", but you've always far exceeded "work". You've made the only vampire-related story that I can sink my teeth into. (Excuse the pun.)

Maybe Hylie would refer to these as "levels", but from my standpoint, you should have Heliska correct her. This would serve the purpose of making Hylie seem to be of the "demon vernacular", and establish further Heliska's character as being a higher class of demon, like Knale. Not stronger, but maybe of better breeding.

Just some thoughts to chew on from a fan with a mouth far too big for his head.

Love and Vale,
-Leavaros