[h3]The Duchy of Zerul, by a road in southwest[/h3]
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[I]Oh my,[/I] Olan thought, smiling amusedly to himself as he came to stand before these new acquaintances Etakar had found for them, barely even paying attention to Jaelnec's words and paying no mind to himself being introduced as 'just Olan'. He looked around with blatant curiosity, excited about what he was seeing, and was particularly interested to examine the great black-furred one snoozing off to the side. [I]Now this is interesting![/I]
He paid enough attention to what was going on to note their newly encountered man and woman's names - Domhnall the hunter and Iridiel, the marked by Sullis - and grinned at the mention of the goddess, a deity mostly marginalized in eastern countries as her sphere of influence overlapped with both that of Reina and Gaia, both of which were much more powerful entities. It was all just so delightfully unusual, it made him all tingly with the sense of experiencing something new, and indeed perhaps even something never seen before in the history of Rodoria... and one might argue that such sights were particularly common these days, with the ravaging of the Withering and the consequences of its reign, but to him, this was better.

It was only when Thaler requested his assistance in getting to Aemoten's side that he stirred from his state of dazed wonderment. "Of course," he immediately assured her, and unfailingly lead her to where the Sekalyn slept. "He's napping, you know? I guess these last couple of days have been tough on him. Must be hard, making everyone's safety his own responsibility like that, you know?"
Once they were by their leader's side, however, Olan could no longer contain his curiosity and, as soon as Thaler was safely at her destination, swiveled around to look excitedly from the furry creature to Domhnall and Iridiel. "Okay, okay, I'm dying to know," he exclaimed with a grin, "what two éireannach and a del-korm are doing here? And together, too. That's probably about the most unusual thing I remember seeing, you know!"

---
[h3]Zerul City, the Drunken Dove[/h3]
While I'on's spell technically affected both of the deo'iel and successfully exerted its influence on both of them without meeting any real resistance, its effect was - on both of them - exceedingly weak and short-lived. It was not that the blue-haired one realized what was happening and refused to let her mind be manipulated by magic, nor was it a matter of the masked demonspawn's primal rage being so intense that it burned straight through the fabric of the spell. No, the reason that the magical energy that momentarily permeated the air before wrapping around them, trying to force their minds into new molds, seemed to quickly exhaust itself and scatter, was quite another: it had a competitor that was far beyond the meager scope of its influence. Indeed, how could the spell of a mortal mage ever hope to cancel out and reverse the perpetually renewed influence of demon blood?
For a second after the spell was cast, the sisters felt oddly light, and found themselves visiting an inner place of serenity that they had not known since they together had occupied their mother's womb. Their eyelids would flutter and their breaths catch in their throats... and then the writhing serpent inside of them that was Himyth's infernal heritage reared its head and, with shocking ease, completely shattered the spell that audaciously tried to dethrone it as the supreme force shaping these two puny creatures.
...or at least, it would be. Eventually. Once it finally gathered the strength to shatter the shackles put on it by the sisters' mother.

The blue-haired sister kept staring fearfully as Morgan and Ixion briefly clashed, looking not at the pair fighting one another, but at the wall of soil and stone that stood between her and them, trembling ever so slightly as though it was a living thing, a lumbering creature of dirt, so eager to hunt and crush its prey that it could barely even contain itself.
And indeed, the masked sister mimicked the wall created by her power, shaking all over her body as she stared at Morgan with undisguised hatred. But her trembling was not, as her sister thought, a symptom of eagerness and anticipation; it was the result of her trying desperately to stop herself from succumbing to the demonic bloodthirst within her. She wanted to do it - she could almost hear the music of dying screams and bones being ground to splinters and dust, could almost smell the aroma of flesh and blood being blended into a shapeless paste by a writhing mass of rock and dirt, all while keeping her victims alive for as long as possible - but she made the conscious decision not to. Her logical sense of ethics was locked in struggle with her core nature, which bade her to attack, torment and kill everyone in her vicinity.
Only once Morgan spoke, declaring his willingness to cooperate, did she manage to reign in [I]her[/I] beast, and with a surge of effort she managed to quell her rage. Slowly the wall she had created retracted back into the ground from which it had come, until nothing was left of it but the broken floor and cracked ceiling.

The blue-haired demonspawn breathed a sigh of relief. "That could have ended very badly," she murmured, almost to herself, gently resting the fingers of her left hand on her chest as she smiled. "But I suppose that you have a point when it comes to you having no reason to trust us... though believe me, my sister is just as dangerous in wide open spaces as in confined ones."
The masked one returned to the common room as her sister spoke, the mirrors of her eyes dark and smooth once more as her power slumbered. The two of them shared a look, and then nodded in unison.
"How about this: so that we all have no choice but to trust one another, everyone here wearing a mask takes it off, and we share our real names - which I'm sure you must realize is very dangerous for us to do. Normally we would simply be the Sisters of Torment, but if it calms your nerves..." She sighed. "My name is Violet, and this is my twin sister, Rose."