Hero Scout

Exhausted already, she spared her two humanoid arms to shield her eyes from the bright blasts of molten magma, while positioned her two crystalline claws to defend against any sudden attack.

Instead, she found a demon in a blue corporate suit and holding an umbrella to shield her from the ash.

"h.e.l.lo Ma"am, what business have you on company property?" The demon said as it tightened it"s tie and squinted h.e.l.lfire filled eyes.

"I"m looking for someone called Darrio. Heard of him?" Hena rasped as she stalked forward quite ready to tear out this creature"s throat at the slightest provocation.

"The CEO? Well, I"ver certainly heard of him. He"ll be at company headquarters, where Gausighkt the Devil Knight"s castle used to be. Mind if I ask what business you have with him?" The demon might have spoken nicely, but his aura swelled with power and the veins beneath his blue corporate suit were bulging with raging lines of demonic magic.

"We"re part of...well you"ll know it as the 18 the doubt. Gravitas, is another name for our group," as Hena finished the demon"s aura deflated to that of a rabbit"s, the poor fellow bowing as low as possible while gesturing down a basalt road.

"Then this way - please hurry, the CEO hates those who come late. Best we go now - no - I"ll use this," taking out a little Saphire harp, the demon lightly pulled a claw across the strings to make a sweet chorus of notes. Above exploded a vortex of vermillion coloured magic, a pair of demonic bats screeching within came flying out with a trail of skyblue cinders.

"Take this one to the CEO at Gravitas Ltd, you know the address," the greeter to h.e.l.l snapped, the bats flying in a little loop before s.n.a.t.c.hing Hena by the arms and carrying her off through the air.
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Soaring over a h.e.l.lscape being radically crushed under the foot of economic development, Hena got a good look at what this realm was becoming. Huge roadways flanked by neatly arrayed basalt buildings were stretching out as part of a swarm of construction from a distant peak where a half-finished skysc.r.a.per sat.

A thousand demonic workers were pulling along gigantic sleighs filled with raw resources, while across the constructions frontier Hena spied flashes of flame and the constant movement of demons back and forth. Like ants, they moved down in long lines and returned with raw resources, demonic artifacts and demons bound in heavy chains.

On lakes of flaming Sulphur set sail crude container ships, leaving from ports hewn out by demonic fishmen and carrying crates of manufactured goods being supplied by ma.s.sive pits that belched out an endless stream of smoke. It didn"t really surprise Hena that Daario had kept himself busy, but starting a company in h.e.l.l?

That was something only the 1st was capable of.

Approaching the basalt sky-sc.r.a.per, Hena was taken in by the sheer enormity of it. At the tower"s feet, a bustling series of buildings along with newly created roads were filled with movement of every demonic monstrosity imaginable. The tower itself rose like a t.i.tan sized brick right into the air above.

Upon landing, Hena was moved along with impeccable speed.

She was offered tea by crimson skinned devils, asked if she were hungry by Succubus waiters, and escorted through several security screenings conducted by obsidian armoured creatures with long lancelike spears that would have made a mammoth quake and unblinking eyes filled with pits of soulless horror. The Obsidian Guard, as she was told, seemed to similarly scare the regular demons with their strange soulless aura, although it wasn"t just their aura that frightened Hena.

She had only met eight thus far, but each felt as if the final boss of some dungeon. She could feel it in how their mere presence sucked the life from the air and those bottomless eyes promised a fate far worse than death for the slightest transgression.

"4th! Hena, baby! Good to see you," Grinned a fellow with bright blood red hair, sparkling crimson eyes and a body designed for war. Racing along his arms was red lightning, currently sparking madly as his broad chest shook with mirth. "When the p.a.w.ns told me it was you, I barely believed it!"

"Ranarium..." Hena grimaced, then again those who enjoyed the 3rd"s company were few and far between. "I"m guessing it was you who did that foolish thing with the Cathedral...why do you always have to be such a colossal idiot? What was the point in riling up the kingdom like that?"

Despite his boorish personality, Hena stayed on guard. Ranarium the 3rd had no allegiances to anything but power, would not hold to a deal that did not benefit him and had quite literally sold his own mother in the past to prove a point. The man was a psychopath, and only the respect he held for Daario had kept him loyal to Gravitas until now.

Then there was his infuriating obsession with her.

"Dearest, sweet little Hena, I wanted to turn the heat up is all. The other of the 18 are...weak. This way they will be hunted, and either grow strong enough to find us, as you have, or find their place in the gutters. But come, darling, let us take you somewhere private where we can-"

"I want to speak to Daario," Hena snapped, "so get lost Ranarium. Whatever your scheming, I want no part." Hena began spinning a portal blade in her hands, while Ranarium"s body suddenly flared with chaotic lightning as his grin widened.

"Oh baby, you know just won"t get"s my blood flowing, don"t you?" he teased, crackling chaos armour snapping around his arms as he raised them into the stance of a boxer. Knowing full well that Ranarium had reduced a cathedral to rubble at lvl 1, she had no doubts of the destructive capacity he would be capable of by now.

"Enough! Both of you stop at once. Hena come this way," a Fallen angel with a supernatural level of beauty said, with three raven black wings sprouting from his back and silver armour scrawled with the tales of l.u.s.t and conquest in equal measure.

"Nocturne?" Hena guessed, the 2nd having always having been a stickler for the rules and semi-obsessed with looking as handsome as he could. A fallen angel was quite the improvement from his beak-like nose and watery eyes in his past life. Not that she would say so aloud, the 2nd"s status as Daario"s chief advisor making him a very bad person to get on the bad side of. How he - as a literal angel - had even made it into the first ring of h.e.l.l at all baffled her, but knowing Nocturne, Hena guessed he had found some loophole as he almost always did.

Always within the law this one. Yet so d.a.m.n smart he still got everything he wanted just like Ranarium, if with infuriatingly hard to refute justifications. Then again, a lawyer who specialised in defending Kingpins, Mercenaries and Criminal enterprises from the law and actually succeeded more often than not was bound to be rather exceptional.

"See you, babe," Ranarium said, licking his lips and winking as he stared openly at her backside. Seeing as Hena hated imposing men above all, she had a d.a.m.n hard time holding back from teleporting his head into a stinking cesspit and his body to a cold mountain peak.

"That"s the look I remember, you haven"t changed a bit," Ranarium taunted, Hena forced to turn away. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d wanted her to react and she wouldn"t give him the pleasure, not unless she was certain he"d be dead and buried by the end of it.

Entering after Nocturne into a rather crude elevator, she was whisked upward to the current tallest floor. Opening the door she found several more of Gravitas" members strolling about the construction site, a Fae Druid, a Lich armoured in blood ice, and a little ratty boy with several snapping books while being followed by a pair of personal Obsidian Guards.

Past them all was a great terrace, a table raised atop it covered in little coloured pieces and a partially finished map. Daario looked as he always had with neat black hair, a set of sharp brown eyes and hawkish features that made his merest glance make one feel as if he already knew everything there was to know about you. If with devilish features down one side, his right hand now ink black and clawed.

His own suit was made of a fine wine red, with little magical pins filled with intense auras and a fiery quil that floated in the air behind him. The Quil had a little golden eye, which stared at Hena as it"s flaming form burst into a brighter inferno of gold, before returning back to its regular cinder red.

"Hena, you took your time. What powers have you obtained, and what news do you bring?" Daario said, raising his chin to look at her as if for this short time not a single other soul existed. Hena"s heart skipped a beat, her many stresses and troubles now feeling no heavier than a warm summer"s breeze.

"I can make portals, to anywhere given enough mana. But they are easily manipulated by wards, so it would be best to only use them either to remote locations or only after the region has had its portal wards removed. The portal is also far less likely to make a exit underground, the sky, a wall or some other less than ideal location if i"ve been there before. My apologies for being late, but before I knew of these ward"s existence I had the location of my first portal changed to the inside of an Inquisitor"s cell."

Daario nodded, yet made not a sound as he watched several imps appear from shadowy pa.s.ses to mumble to themselves and move around the pieces on the table. Another with a quil scribbled some additions to the leftmost side of the map, while a third placed delicate rolls of demon leather on a nearby desk.

"And what have you heard on your travels?"

"I"ve found 18th, 17th, 15th and 11th. 18th is running a "Hero Farm" to help us gain XP faster, 17th has started his communist state to the east of the Kingdom of Alandria, while 15th has created a Mafia like organisation to collect intelligence, and is challenging 17th for control of the area. 11th meanwhile...well, I heard rumours that he was killed after setting a gigantic wildfire."

Another pause, Daario just staring at her while those dark eyes filled with a keen intelligence felt like they already knew every d.a.m.n thing Hena was saying. Sc.r.a.ping her brain for news, she tried desperately to think up something more but knew nothing else with the utter certainty required to report it.

"You"ve done well, 4th. I"ll have work for you to do soon, and this news of yours is appreciated. I"ll have agents dispatched soon, so, for now, relieve yourself on such matters until I am ready to hear a more detailed report. Rest a.s.sured, Gravitas"s time has come, and while we failed in the last world, we will never bow to another power again now that we have been given this second chance."

Striding to a balcony that overlooked the rapid construction that spread in all direction, and overlooked a great array of demonic infantry. The columns held up crimson flags emblazoned with intertwined arms. One was ink black and ended in claws, the other pale and humanoid. Daario paused as he watched the columns split along several streets, and head to several fronts.

"You did say that 18th had started a "Hero Farm", did you not?"

"Yes, I thought it was a good idea, and left him behind to continue it. He has the powers to morph into different people, so I a.s.sumed it better he ingrain himself in the area and wait for us to return for him," Hena fiddled with her hands, "was that the wrong thing to say?"

"Well...no. Your thought process is correct, but there is another problem. For one, 18th has never seemed to be an especially bright person. Not so much as to make so useful a creation as an XP farm."

"Perhaps he boosted his intelligence with his species or cla.s.s?" Hena said, waiting for the other shoe to drop and Daario to reveal his deep insight on the matter. Their conversations, while enlightening for Hena, had rarely ended with her getting the upper hand. Few did for that matter.

"Well, 4th, that brings us to the other problem. You see last I knew, 18th had been turned to stone before that machine was activated. So the question is, if 18th never came to this world with us, then who knows enough of our organisation to pretend they are one of ours? Might it be possible, this person does not merely replicate others but can retain their memories too, enough to feign being 18th at least?"

Hena paused, a chill running down her spine. Just what kind of sociopath could have lied right to her face like that, and how many more of them just like that were out there? Another organisation like Gravitas perhaps, 18 more rival criminals?

The possibilities were endless.

Daario nodded grimly.

"It seems we have compet.i.tion. From now on we"ll have to operate with extreme caution, and I"ll start by sending out some of our forces to find out just how much of a threat this "18th" might be to our plans."

End of Volume 1