Drip-Fed

To the regular denizen of the Omniverse, the question of what the camp of a demon host would look like occurred regularly. Demons were the villains in many tales, the definitive evil within a person's reality. Though Parasytes killed many, so many more than demons ever did, the voidborn things did so slowly. Theirs was an insidious murder, carried out with cruel slowness.

The spawns of the Hellroots killed for amusement and when they killed, they left survivors. More importantly, they were beings. A writer could describe the cruelty of a Deathhound, an artist could catch the horror of a Skinwalker, a musician could mimic the staccato of a Skelspider. No description could ever match two Parasytes, no artist could truly capture a Shapeform, and musicians would all despair at the void of sounds.

Thus, demons were the villains of stories. Thus, the people of the Omniverse wondered about them. Thus, artists wrote and painted and played songs about them.

Reysha and Korith found that the tales that they had grown up with were underplaying the reality.

The camp of the demons was located in a crag between two intersecting cliffsides. It was a pocket of definition in a landscape that had been diminished immensely already. The mountain that the cliffs belonged to had been turned into an unnaturally smooth, grey cone for most of it, the once snow-covered peak still white but bereft of cold.

The reduction of specifics had caused stone to shift around, leading to the V-shaped gap the demons advanced into. Overhangs covered everything from direct sunlight.

Moving into the crevice was akin to moving into a scene of hell. It reeked of saliva and rotting meat, the source of both hanging from the sides of the cliffs. Rocks had been sharpened and logs rammed into the craggy stone wherever possible, making the walls appear as if covered in thorns, from which the unfinished meals of a hundred demons hung alongside the lesser Impreh-class spawns that still gnawed on them.

The confined space had next to no airflow. The air was stagnant and hot. Demons maintained fires all over, laughing as they covered themselves and the world in ash.

Their guide and the apparent leader of the camp, Bulubu, continued to move on ahead. Harrowing steps continued to carry them deeper into the demon's den. It was a winding path between various encampments. The further in they went, the further up they went and the more the host of demons that had been with them thinned out. A hierarchy was visible, the lower classes of demons sitting lowest and the higher classes highest, simple, and, to the creatures of the Hellroots, intuitive.

At the end of the ravine, where the two displaced cliffs intersected, the demons had erected a shrine. It was the crowning jewel in the cavalcade of nightmares, a twisted shrine built from bones of humanoids, animals and demons alike. Fresh guts were draped over it – something Bulubu could not abide.

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"WHO DID THAT?!" the Jitter screeched. "Who defaced my shrine – MY shrine – to Fabian?! Speak, speak… was it you? It must have been you!" The greyish white mass of skin and limbs raised an accusatory finger at one of the four demons still with them.

It was a crouching creature, every bit as monstrous as the rest of them. It had a leathery hide, pulled taut over a confusing mesh of the bodies of wolf and ape. Its most prominent feature was its tube-like head and the teethed lips dominating.

Squelching overpowered the words the demon had for Bulubu. While speaking, it stuffed its face with mysterious meat, gorging itself on the raw red. It took as much delight in devouring the flesh as it did in letting it messily slouch off its triangular teeth. For a demon, the act of eating was unnecessary – they did it for pleasure and nothing else.

Bulubu charged across. A fight between the two demons broke out and was resolved just as fast. The Jitter pinned the Fleshgorger to the stone, stabbing it with its claws until the enemy submitted. "Yield! I yield! Snarlesh apologizes!"

The surrendering demon trotted forwards, reluctantly yanking the bloody guts off the shrine. As it did so, many of the bones came loose. At first, this incensed the Jitter. On second view, the demon decided that it was even more beautifully chaotic this way.

"Jolene will be displeased, so displeased…" the Fleshgorger lamented.

The mention of that name had Aclysia, Reysha and Apexus tense. Memories of fire surfaced in their minds, the redheaded Empress of Blood, gorgeous and yet soaked to the soul in spilled ichor, standing next to her summoner. They had feared followers of hers would be here. So far, it did not appear they had been identified though.

Bulubu returned its attention to the Inevitable party. "This is our base. I do not expect you to stay here. I remember mortals like it… scented… flowery and…" It stopped, repulsed at the word that left its throat. "…ordered!"

"This is accurate," Apexus said, before Aclysia could answer. He deemed it best he did not let the angel lead these negotiations. Though he shared the reasons she would be driven to judgemental wordings, cooperation had to be maintained. "I thank you for the help in the burials."

"It was my displeasure! I hated it! Waste of bones and skin!" Bulubu's steady jitters were disrupted by a wavy wobble. "You will make it worth it. Kill Spark Eaters." The word was echoed hatefully by all surrounding demons. "Kill them all."

"We will aid you in destroying the Black Roots," Apexus assured.

"Good… we will scout. You can fly. You too can scout. Stay nearby. Tell us where your camp is. When time comes that we head out, we will strike. Together."

To the party it was a mercy that was all that needed to be said. They left the way they came, but found little relief in stepping out of the stench of the ravine. What filled it was nothing, a reduction of scents to a scent that did not exist anywhere else and struck their nostrils as artificial. Rot was a reminder of death, but it was also a reminder of fecund life. In nature, nothing was never discarded, just repurposed by something else, however microscopic.

This scent was the true scent of death, final death – a darkness with no afterlife. No heaven, no hell, no sleep, just an endless void that swallowed all meaning that had ever existed.

They would still rather sleep with that scent in their nose than demons breathing down their necks.