Tue
"So, Mark, you said something about plans for the demon lord? Maybe we could work something out. I mean, for an Order member you seem quite understanding." Tue started, looking vaguely in the direction of Mark as she trekked forward to their destination.
‘Well… clearly, you and Syszi are at odds with one another,’ Mark uttered, glancing between the heavily-clothed mask and the barely-clothed salamander. ‘She likes the current Demon Lord; you want to usurp the current Demon Lord. And you’d think my goal is to just kill the Demon Lord outright, but as you can see, my circumstances are mildly exceptional… not to mention I may never even get close to her, what with the whole Royal Makai Demon Realm in the way and all.’
“Mark is right. I’m not particularly inclined to give someone who wants to rebel against the Demon Lord the time of the day, let alone assist them in their endeavours.” The salamander let out a clearly audible ‘humph,’ and turned her nose up at the Mask. Or, at least, she turned away from the mask- since the salamander was taller than the other mamono, she didn’t exactly feel the need to do much more. “And as for Mark… Well, not only is he my
husband and so I couldn’t hurt him badly if I wanted to, but I’m hardly going to convince an Order knight not to kill the Demon Lord.”
"Ah, so it's a matter of love…" Tue mumbled, a tad bit offended by the Salamander's rudeness but understanding her actions nonetheless. "What do you like about the Demon Lord? I'm sure an ironclad ruler such as myself could provide more?" Tue bragged, though her tone was more inquisitive than haughty.
‘I think what she likes is not being a lizard with no thoughts beyond murdering things,’ Mark interjected. He had no comments to give about whether he was Syszi’s husband or not beyond a slight grimace, but for this he certainly did. ‘And likewise for most monsters, I imagine. Unless you can maintain that status quo, she’s going to think of you as inferior to the current Demon Lord. Speaking of whom,’ he continued, gesturing to his weapon, ‘the idea in my mind is to eventually convert all monsters everywhere the way Syszi’s been… ah, but you don’t know about that yet, do you, Tue?’ Did he want to be so open about that spell so soon? Then again, if anybody else knew, they’d put a negative spin on it before he could explain it properly…
“You know Mark, you can just say it.” The salamander turned towards the mask and sighed, before taking a deep breath. “The branch of the Order that Mark belongs to has devised a spell that can… I believe cleanse the soul of a monster by forcing out the demonic energy within them and replacing it with ‘clean’ spiritual energy. As well as this, he can also bind a mamono to his will, using the same spell. He managed to perform the former on me in our first fight, although I resisted the whole mind control thing enough that I can still hurt the Order. Or, at least I could until they tweaked the spell. I can hurt, but not
kill, any member of the Order that I come across, and if Mark tells me not to kill someone, I can’t kill that person.” She finished and let out what little breath she had left, before turning to see the reaction of Tue.
"Mind control?!?" Tue exclaimed over dramatically. "That's horrible! Please, tell me you aren't going to use that part on all the mamano?" She asked, knowing of course that it could convert monsters to her side for a revolution, if she could convince Mark and Syszi of course, mostly Syszi. "Anywho, I'm not sure if you'd keep you sentience, Sy. I haven't found much information on Masks before the new Demon Lord's reign. Still, I'm sure there's a way to keep everyone happy. I'd need to work on my magic though…"
‘It’s not mind control,’ Mark pointed out, rubbing the bridge of his helmet. ‘Mind control would, for example, be forcing a guy to enjoy being raped- you know, like what a lot of monsters do.’ A pointed glare through his helmet wouldn’t have the same effect, so he just continued talking, gesticulating as he did so. ‘The will-binding procedure is- well, it’s two parts, first an energy bond between the souls to let them cleanse one another if one starts getting corrupted, and then the actual shackling of their will, which
doesn’t alter their thoughts. It’s basically a self-defense mechanism - say a Hero purifies a Minotaur, who’s now angry that they’re not technically a monster anymore. With their will bound, the Hero can stop the Minotaur from killing them just by thinking about it. Without, he’s already drained, and may be weaker than the Minotaur after that… oh, and by the by, we updated that part, Syszi. The current form of the spell just turns the demonic energy into spirit energy, like an inversion or what have you. I’m not sure about the specifics there, but basically, the old stuff is cleared out, and what’s put back is better than before, or so I believe.’
Tue's face would scrunch up, if it could, at Mark's comment about monster rape. But it couldn't, so she settled for a gasp not unlike Syszi. After listening to Mark's explanation, Tue was silent for a bit before responding. "Well, if you take parts out of something and put new parts in, is it really even the same person? My rifle, if I cut down the barrel and replaced the stock… would it really be my same old rifle? Sure I would own it, but the components that made it would all be gone. It's only my rifle in spirit, superficially. What a terrible existence for my little rifle! Torn apart, and it's place in the world stolen!" Tue flourished, a hand raised to her head. After which she realized her foolish behavior and corrected her form, back to the stoic, manipulative, strong woman she obviously was. "Erhem, but still, I'm not sure I agree with this 'cleansing,' even if it makes monsters safer for humans. There must be another way than that."
“Whilst normally I would be opposed to being compared to an inanimate object, it feels strangely appropriate to be compared to a weapon.” The salamander chuckled. “And besides, I didn’t agree with it either, hence why I spent so much of my time before I got a rematch against him extremely pissed off. And then a little time after it still pissed off, if I’m honest.” She sighed, also pointedly ignoring the comment about monster rape. Technically, monsters didn’t force humans into liking being raped, but hey, if they were kinky enough to enjoy it…
‘It’s not quite...’ Mark began, cutting himself off in order to think of a better explanation than he had been about to give. ‘Okay, here’s, uh… it’s more like a container, I guess? The soul, that is. You know, it has its shape, whatever internal stuff that forms its structure, and then it has stuff inside it, namely spirit energy and/or demonic energy. The thing about demonic energy is, it causes the soul to be more lustful by default, because of the Demon Lord’s influence, right? So if you replace that with spirit energy, the soul gets less lustful, but the personality itself doesn’t then become completely different… which proves problematic when a being who was already lustful regardless of corruption is purified, because they might well try to get themselves corrupted again anyway. But the thing is,’ he continued, ‘either way, what monsters crave is spirit energy, so giving them the ability to generate their own - in the manner of a man, by the way, much stronger than women’s generation - basically provides them with sustenance of their own. Some of them, anyway. You’d benefit from it for sure, Tue, considering.’
“That’s a unique way of trying to get someone to sleep with you,” cracked Syszi, before scratching the back of her neck. “Nice to know that you’ve… Not at all perfected the spell. What you just said sounds both ominous, and kind of… Well, if the replacement was immoral, permanently altering someone to your standard of ‘better’ sounds like an incredibly slippery slope to start going down. Or, it would, if you weren’t Order and hadn’t already leapt off of the slippery slope.” Seemed the Salamander was still a little bitter about what had been done to her.
Now Mark was just confused. ‘I think you’re misunderstanding what I’m saying. They’re not… wait, we’ve discussed this before, Syszi, my God- Tue, it’s not a permanent alteration the way Syszi’s saying,’ he said, turning to the mask. ‘It doesn’t directly change their underlying personality, you know? They’re still
them, they’re just a more… reasonable version of them. Not addled by endless thoughts of sex and such, you know?’
Tue 'humphed.' "I'm getting two different sides of the story here. Spirit generation seems useful certainly, but your test subject here doesn't seem quite happy about it. Besides, what would a demon lord be like without any demonic energy?... What
would a demon lord be without any demonic energy? Not that it matters, for now, I'm not endorsing this, not until I learn more. There are two sides to every story, after all."
Tue paused for a moment, before realizing something. "Ah, so that's how you met! Well, now I see why an Order knight has a salamander for a wife. Here I was hoping for a story of a man realizing demons were people too… or at least a little will they won't they. Ah well, I suppose not all love is glamorous."
‘I mean, a Demon Lord without demonic energy would probably… think through their plans before executing them?’ Mark suggested, subtly citing how the current Lord’s ritual was guaranteed to slowly kill everything sentient if not resolved, human or monster. ‘And ideally prove to want the best for both humans and monsters, and not just their own species of monster. As for Syszi being my… companion...’ Mark trailed off here, not sure where to continue on to
“We have for the moment. He could go over the scientific knowledge gained from mating with her, but he figured that would be… boring, at best.
“We did not ‘discuss this already,’ because you yourself said that you recently improved it. If you just changed it, there’s no possible way for us to discuss it, considering we haven’t discussed it in quite a long time.” Syzi was quick on the report, it had to be said. “And anyway, a demon lord without demon energy would quite likely be powerless, if I’m correct.” She touched her chin, before shrugging. “Not the best authority on that, I have to say. Maybe we should ask the source, if we ever see her.”
"Oh, I hope we do. Than we can murder her!" Tue exclaimed with a grin.
Mark’s gauntlet promptly met the front of his helmet with a loud-ish clang. ‘That is not what I meant, Syszi, and there is more to it than that, Tue. I… I think? Okay, first things first-’
Mark wound up unable to begin his explanation, for at that very moment, a farmer began limping towards the trio, immediately launching into a half-explanation about how his leg got broken by somebody from the city. A human man, most likely… but knowing what he did now, it could just as easily be a monster… man. Monsterboy? Or a disguised monstergirl. Who knew.
‘Don’t worry, sir, we’ve got this under control,’ Mark offered, both soothing and authoritative, as any good Order Knight ought to be. Turning to Tue and Syszi, he commanded, ‘You two go after the city fellow, I’ll stay here and heal this man’s broken leg. Try to bring him back alive if you can.’
Tue nodded to her ally, dashing towards the mountain, hand at her hilt ready to draw it. "This is our moment!" She exclaimed, in what she thought was an inspirational manner.
Syzi also nodded and drew her sword, smiling as it caught the light. She shook her head at her ally’s false enthusiasm, before following after her quickly, wondering what exactly they were looking out for. A human? A monstergirl? A monster...boy? She supposed it was boy, rather than monster’man’. After all, you didn’t call mamono monsterwomen.
Collab between
@Lady Selune,
@Kafka Komedy, and
@BCTheEntityBunny
Interaction: @AriamisOver the course of the trip, Bunny rode on Matti's soldier occasionally, whenever she was sure there were no monsters about to spoil there funny. He had offered after all, and she appreciated him allowing her to get close, though she knew that humans could leave you on a dime. Still, she did like the gentle floating of his flight and his shoulder. Upon him asking her a question, Bunny responded frankly.
"A demon wizard made me so I could ward off demons from my family- or owners I suppose. They tossed me out though, I almost killed a man." There was a bit of an awkward silence before Bunny finished the thought.
"I thought he was going to hurt them, but it was just a little squabble, I was told. The neighbors didn't appreciate having me around as much as my owners did. Much as I thought they did at least." She explained. For much of the rest of the trip, she was silent, and refused to move off Matti's shoulder.
Once Matti and Bunny were close to the city, the doll went limp, not seeing any monsters around. It was a fairly bustling little place, many people walking about, trading and the such. There were a few people shrouded by hoods that Bunny suspected might not be human, but she couldn't be truly sure, and kept herself hidden.
Sadly, her cover was blown fairly quickly. As Matti went up to the man who was assumably their target- er, client, Matti introduced himself and Bunny. She cursed openly, before becoming full of life again.
"I wanted to keep my cover." Bunny explained, visibly annoyed.
"Still, it looks like these might not be humans. I assume you're fine with this, Samuel? Don't worry, Matti will be the one showing you the ropes of cartography, I'm no mapmaker."With that, Bunny hopped off her ally's shoulder and took a closer look at one of the hooded figures.
