The NU Demon

I confidently stride towards the door, doing my best to replicate the haughty and generally arrogant attitude most succubi seem to have. I need to get some distance, in case any of the ankle biters trying to fly their way up here saw me duck in.

Immediately after that thought I hear noise behind me. I spin around in a small panic, but there's no way they caught up to me that quickly right?

The answer is no, sorta. A bunch of imps have entered the shaft, and are surging DOWN towards the bottom. No idea where they came from, but they seem to be ignoring me so I return the favor.

I continue my stride towards the kitchen, observing the items on the shelves on my way by. Mostly food, a few platters of plates and utensils here and there.

As I close on the kitchen I can tell from the noise that it is busy with a capital B. Which honestly shouldn't surprise me, given the sheer amount of demons and cultists I've seen in the camp. This bunker is a newer type. so it should have multiple smaller mess halls scattered throughout the complex instead of a centralized kitchen and mess like the old bunker styles. That thankfully means a smaller area and less demons and cultists I have to slip past. Which is good, because the mess hall is probably not super focused on stuff aside from eating. And as such are much more likely to pay any sort of attention to and thus scrutinize me.

That's bad because my knowledge of succubi behavior is limited to acting like a haughty bitch who thinks she owns the place. As such I'm not going to be perfect in my acting. I can probably pass the glance check no problem with cultists, and if James is to be believed, even most demons. But if I hang around long enough they will probably start to get suspicious. As such my best bet is to just keep moving and stick to populated, but not to crowded areas. Just another demon in the crowd.

I push through the double doors into the kitchen proper. I make sure to shove the closed one open with enough force to make it appear I'm annoyed, but not enough to make it break or bang into anything.

Busy was an understatement, the kitchen here was fully staffed, all human. Hell, I think some of the stations were double staffed. They all wore regular kitchen attire but with this cabal or whatever's symbol stitched on. Aside from what were clearly a few waiters and waitresses, some scantily dressed others not, grabbing dishes from a ready area. Despite the fact the kitchen was directly connected to a serving window that seemed to be dishing out food as quick as it was receiving it.

I quickly picked up on the split in the service. The nice, well prepared food was placed onto the plates which the waiters grabbed. While the more basic stuff was pushed out via the serving window, which had five personnel constantly shoveling food as trays and plates. Seems odd to run waiters when they have the serving window. But judging from the fact the waiters are only moving nicer food, I'd hazard a guess that it's some sort of VIP service.

But something was off about the finished food. And I almost freaked out a little bit when I realized it was my essence sensing that was picking it up! Focusing on it, it felt….. tainted, for lack of a better word. Not bad even, just tainted. Which is weird because demonic taint should…. Right I'm a demon as well as a dumb ass, I probably don't care about taint. But still, the fact they are tainting the food somehow. I can see normal humans, as much as you could call a cultist normal, receiving what is clearly tainted food. At least to my senses.

I shake my head and step forward, not too keen on standing too long and drawing attention. It's a straight shot from the back double doors to another set at the front that leads out of the kitchen. The problem is I have to walk behind a bunch of the staff, who are constantly shuffling and moving things around.

A few steps into my walk I pick up on what's tainting the food. At a station near the end, two cultists appear to be applying some sort of red paste to almost everything that's leaving the kitchen. Constantly dipping their brushes into a giant bin that reeks of taint to my essence senses before slathering it across mass quantities of food.

Oh joy…. I probably don't want to know what's in that bin.

I keep walking, slipping past some sort of potato mashing station without even a glance from the cultists. My disguise seems to be working. The next station gives me no trouble either, this one seems to be some sort of meat prep.

I'm almost to the door, passing the last station. Some kind of final prep and garnish before the food gets the corruption sauce.

One of the workers suddenly spins around and darts out in front of me. I jerk myself to a stop, but the oblivious idiot doesn't. They crash into me, I reflexively shift my hands to block the dishes they are carrying from hitting me, which causes the tray to flip back up and splatter mostly all over them. But some of whatever yellow sauce was on the dishes splattered over my hands. They drop the plates, and they very loudly crash to the ground, drawing the attention of everyone in the kitchen and the serving line.

The idiot stumbles back, a middle aged asian man missing most of his hair. He looks at me, fury on his face initially, but I watch it drain away to horror as he realizes what I am. Well, what I'm disguised as anyway. The kitchen is dead silent, aside from the sizzling of the grills and the noise filtering in through the serving window.

I stare at him stunned for a moment, then realize I need to snap out of it and act properly for my role. I shake most of the sauce off my hands with legitimate annoyance as he tries to speak in a quaking voice.

"P..pplease mistress. I'm sorry! I…I…..I"

"Shut up!" I snap at him. Looking down at the goop on my hands.

Shit…..Judging by the look on his face and those around us I'm pretty sure a normal reaction to this would be killing him, or worse. And while I have no qualms about killing cultists, I'm not sure I could do it with my bare hands. I'm not that far gone. I also don't want to attract that kind of attention. But if I simply walk away it will seem suspicious, so I'll have to improvise and ruff him up at least a little bit.

"Incompetent monkey! Watch where you're fucking going!" I snap at him while aggressively wiping my hands on his apron. He winces at the contact, but otherwise doesn't move. Unfortunately for him, I don't think I'm convincing enough yet.

In a flash I bring my right hand up and strike him across the face. Not hard enough to kill, but certainly hard enough to break his jaw. He crashes into the counter, shaking the whole thing and nearly creating more of a mess, before sprawling to the ground in a heap of incoherent whaling and sobbing. I simply step over him and the mess. The other cooks and patrons at the serving window wince, some mutter a few curses and other things under their breath. But no one says anything. Well except an imp I missed in the corner of the kitchen just cackling it up, yapping something in demonic. Probably trying to egg me on to beat him up more.

To seal the deal, I look back over my shoulder, past my still bloody hair, and sneer at him. "You're lucky I've got more important things to do. Otherwise I'd cook your sausage on one of those grills!" I snap before resuming my walk towards the doors out of the kitchen. Half the kitchen staff winces, most won't even look at me. Works for me, the less eyes the better.

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I make my way over to the exit unaccosted the rest of the way, and shove the swinging doors open to enter the mess hall proper. Dull grey concrete walls gave way to the remnants of some decoration that clearly existed at some point to liven the room. But the new denizens clearly took offense and have ripped most of them apart. Scratching off even paint back down to the industrial surface below. The whole damn room is as big as a football field, and packed to the brim with mostly cultists, but a few tables of demons seem to have control over a particular corner. That didn't mean they were relegated to only that corner of the room though. Corjos slunk around under tables looking for scraps, while plenty of imps bounce around the room looking to steal or bully for wherever they could.

An imp landed on a nearby table with a thud, shaking the whole thing. It stood up yapping something in high pitched demonic while brandishing a chipped knife in its right hand and a fork in its left. It hopped forward and swatted at the nearest of the seated cultists with its knife while the fork dove at the man's food tray. The woman directly across the table whipped out a club from her lap and took a one handed swing at it in return while screaming "Oi bugger off!". The imp, busy posturing for the theft, didn't notice the club until it was already sent flying off the table and across the aisle.

A few tables further down, a corjo demon jumps up and puts its front paws on the edge of a table while letting out a whine barely audible above the din of the room. A cultist picks up a chicken leg and holds it out for the demon. The corjo splits its face open four ways and chomps down on the offered food, ripping it out of the cultists hand and eagerly gobbling it up. Strangely leaving the offering hand untouched. Maybe they figured out not to bite the hands that feed them?

Honestly, this seems tame in comparison to what I expected. Though, these are mostly super low demons messing with the cultists. Most of the high ranking ones seem to be off in some sort of VIP demon area. Which, funny enough, seems to be where all the servers are running to and from.

An area I have no intention of getting anywhere near. Most of the demons in there seem content to ignore the rest of the room. Only a scant few seem interested in what the cultists are doing around them. One casts me a sidelong glance, some sort of amalgamation of the body of a man covered in short white fur with the head of a goat. But it promptly goes back to ignoring me in favor of watching the rest of the room.

Alright, disguise is working for now. The room has three exits aside from the kitchen. Each one in the middle of its respective wall. The tables are arranged such that it's a straight shot up from any exit and the kitchen to the middle of the room.

I start heading through the middle, planning to cut straight across the room and exit out. Once in the halls I'll try to find a map, and from there an elevator or stairs that will get me to the surface. Or at least closer to it. I don't know if the elevator shaft I ascended would have led all the way to the surface but I've got to be pretty close either way.

While walking down the middle leaves me the most exposed, I feel like getting seen trying to stick to the edges would be worse given a succubus's natural ego.

I'm undisturbed, mostly anyway, as I walk past tables. Being naked, a lot of the cultists, men mainly, take the opportunity to leer at me. I even overhear a few hushed comments about how much fun I'd be and they'd love to tap my ass. Gross as hell, and I have to suppress a shiver of disgust. Especially gross since I'm clearly covered in blood, and my hair is still soaked with it. To the point you can barely tell its black underneath.

But these are cultists we're talking about, the corjo demons might have better judgment. Either way I brush off the comments and looks and keep going. The fact that one small slip up will probably get me killed is more than enough to keep my feelings of humiliation at bay for the time being. I'll kill plenty of damn cultists and demons later to make up for it. Well, I guess I'll help kill them, given I'm supposed to be a healer. So much for that life path. Though to be fair I have done some healing, both to myself and others. Its just I feel like I've done more demon purging than actual healing. And unfortunately it looks like that trend isn't going to stop any time soon.

One of those stupid imps jumps out in front of me. It's holding a small stick sharpened into a spear, which it holds over its head in an attempt at a menacing manner. All the while it's wings spread wide and is hollering at me in high pitched demonic. I don't even break stride as I punt the little shit as hard as I can manage on a dime. It tumbles through the air with a very undemonic squawk before landing on a table. It slams down onto a cultists food tray, sending said food everywhere.

For a moment I think I'm fucked, as the cultists at the table jump up cursing and covered in food. But to my surprise the cultists seem to ignore me. Instead they choose to release their newfound sour dispositions upon the imp. As the three closest pull out wooden clubs from under the table and start going to town on it while the others either laugh or start cleaning themselves off.

I'm starting to wonder if the clubs are a standard mess hall tool or something to deal with imps. It would fit given there is an uncountable number of the little stains on the universe just running around this room alone.

I keep going, ignoring cultists, imps, and even a few corjos as I continue my way towards my chosen exit. I think at one point some idiot tried to catcall me, but judging from follow up smacking sound and insults I'd say his friends dissuaded him from continuing that course of action. Yea, great idea dumb ass, catcall the demoness type known for sucking men's souls out their dicks. Sometimes it amazes me how the human race hasn't made itself extinct, even before the demons showed up.

I make it to the door and walk out into the massive hallway without further incident. The first thing I notice is the giant ass crate to the right of the door with a crudely drawn sign hanging off it. And filled to the brim with spare wooden and metal clubs and other blunt objects.

'Imp smacking clubs. Please return after finishing eating." The sign reads.

Oh that's great. Clubs are as standard issue as utensils in the mess hall apparently. The hallway I've stepped into is big, basically a big half circle in shape, meant for moving large machinery and other things around judging by the track marks and large doors strewn along the walls. I look around for some kind of map or indicator of where I might be. Thankfully there is an untouched map mounted inside a case on the wall opposite the door to the mess hall. I stride over have a look over it as nonchalantly as I can, putting my hand on my hip and acting as bored as possible while looking it over.

Lets see, I'm on level five, east section, mess hall. I need to go right and down the hallway to get to the staircase, that will take me up to level three. Unfortunately, the map only shows this floor in detail, with the rest being simply shown for reference. I quickly glance at other parts of the map, just in case I need the knowledge. Second fastest way would be to go left and down to some elevators, which again would only go up to floor three, or down to level seven.

With that out of the way I turn right and start heading down the hallway. It's bustling with cultists and demons alike, coming and going from attached rooms. Some big doors are open, some rooms don't even have big doors to access them. Some cultists sit and stand around, seeming to not do too much. Others are rushing their way through the hall like ants, trying to get tasks done. A few demons populate the hall as well, mostly imps milling about, either making trouble or being put to work.

Halfway down the hall a small legion of the things burst out of a double set of utility doors. Following them is the loud sound of metal being dragged across concrete as each one of them pulls a rope. A moment later the offending box is pulled into the hall by the imps.

"Hurry up and drag that damned thing to the elevatorsssss you uselesssss lumpssssss with wingsssss! The ressssst of you, out of the way!" A voice hisses from the room. Hisses as in like a snake.

A new demon forces its way into the hallway through the same set of double doors, barely big enough to fit through. It rises to its full height once through, easily reaching nine feet tall. Covered in green scales like a snake, its head mimics one too. The torso is humanoid, but has four arms instead of two. No legs either, only a super elongated body ending in a tail.

The imps turn and start heading down the hallway in my direction, the snake demon thing moves to follow them. It sticks its tongue out, then stops. Its eyes scan the hallway around it, before scanning up the hall until its eyes settle on me, and narrow. Aw crap.

It lets out a long, deep hiss that I can hear even from down here. Suddenly several miniature versions of the demon burst out of the room it came from. Except these have two legs instead of a tail like body. They are also armed with black metal spears and swords. The big one points at me and hisses out a variety of noises.

I know when I've been had. Elevators it is then! I turn and bolt in the opposite direction, not bothering with any level of discretion. Behind me I hear the hallway explode into chaos with the shouting of cultists and angry hissing of the snake men demons giving chase. I shoulda known it wasn't gonna be that easy.