It was a dimly lit bedroom, the walls decorated in ancient silks and kept in sight by the handful of candles adorned to the walls.
A woman was standing alone, illuminated under the moonlight on the balcony, she knew I was waiting here in the bedroom-- but she didn't mind. I knew she liked my company, but she'd never be caught dead admitting to it.
"Quit playing games." She softly spoke, her voice was like the passing wind through trees; fleeting.
Here was where I lost control of my character, and in turn, the following cinematic would play.
"Your ascension is at hand, we have Aurum's end at our fingertips." My character told the woman.
"End?" She repeated the word, almost puzzled at its nature.
"We'll never 'end' Aurum. Aurum, or the Humans, they've likened themselves to be the protectorates of Eos. Demons, and even the other races are considered to be under that protectorate. Us defeating them would be like cattle rebelling against its master." She said with a flat tone.
"One grand victory for us, would be a minor loss for them." A hint of sorrow touched her lips as she let out the truth.
"Then what's the point, your majesty. Why do you ask us to fight?" I spoke.
The woman, the Demon Queen, said nothing. Instead, she simply beckoned me to approach her at the balcony.
As I got near her, she motioned out to the landscape before her. It was her kingdom, the grand capital of Demonkind, Ars Goetia.
"Do animals give up and die? Or do they fight until the bitter end?"
---
"BWAAAAA!!!! I'VE MISSED YOU TWO SO MUCH!!! BWAAAAAAAAAA!!!!" The Demon Queen, previously known as Big Sis to me, cried out as she bawled her eyes out hugging the life out of the siblings in her arms.
"Y-Your Majesty! Please do not leave my side!" The coach driver had finally caught up to her, revealing his face. It was a middle-aged man with two curved white horns jutting out his temples; they looked like sheep horns. He looked stern but worried for her, like how a father would catch their child doing something dangerous.
"BWAAAAAAA!! STERGOS LET ME HAVE MY MOMENT, IT'S RAYJI AND TESERA!!! BWAAAAAAA!!!" Tears the size of grapes escaped her eyes as she managed to choke out words in between her sobs to the coach driver named Stergos.
"T-This is the Demon Queen?" Ashari asked, she could hardly believe her eyes as she gawked at the violet haired girl crying her eyes out.
"How unsightly. Do you have no shame, Black Witch?" Ervwin, the clergyman, spoke up. From how he spoke to her, it was obvious there was some bad blood between them.
But the Demon Queen ignored his jab and continued to keep up her touching reunion with the siblings.
"Big Sis, you're never gonna believe it, but we were actually saved by a Hero!" Finally escaping his Big Sister's chokehold, Rayji managed to speak.
"Y-yeah! He's over there, the Dur-- I-I mean, the Hero!" Tesera added in as she pointed to me.
The Demon Queen and I caught each other's gazes, it felt almost electric as we did. It was like I was staring right back at her, the Demon Queen from the game.
But there was a twin set of 'features' that weren't the same...
The original Demon Queen had a petite figure, but this girl... the rest of her matched the petiteness of the original, but her chest refused to be defined by such a dainty term.
"You saved them?" Yanking my eyes away from her set of bouncing heavy ballistics, I manage to recover in time to give a polite nod to her question.
"THANK YOU!!! BWAAAAAAA!!!!!!!" Whatever moment that we had in that fraction of a second our eyes had met was immediately replaced by her resurgence of uncontrollable sobbing.
She may look near identical to her, but her mannerisms were far too different; she wasn't her.
I didn't know whether I felt relieved or not knowing that now.
I began to notice that the crowd from earlier was reconvening to where they were, their courage returning to them after seeing how the 'Black Witch' was acting now.
"Burn the Unpure!" They began to chant as Ervwin took a step forward to where the Demon Queen was.
"One more step and I'll remove your head you old snake." Stergos warned him as he got in between him and the Demon Queen.
"The old lapdog thinks he still has to teeth. Pathetic." Ervwin hissed as he unfurled his robe, revealing what looked like a blackened, gnarled cane from his waist.
As if spurred on by the madness, the crowd doubled in size; we were now surrounded by the crazy-eyed denizens of the town.
I got the sneaking feeling however that this wasn't natural as I eyed at the suspicious cane that Ervwin held.
"Big Sis, what's going on!" Tesera asked, scared as she noticed the rising tension occur outside of their bearhug.
"It's nothing to worry about, your Big Sis won't make the same mistake twice; I'll protect you." She cooed.
"Stergos, we're leaving." She commanded, a dire seriousness matching her tone.
"As you wish, your Majesty." Stergos with the flick of his wrists, revealed a monstrous weapon out of his coat and into his hands; it was Morningstar.
The weapon was the length of his body, and its menacing club head the size of a boulder. He was handling it with agile ease as he twirled it effortlessly, it ripping the air into shrieking whistles as he whirled it around.
"Take one more step and your head will be mine." Stergos warned, but not just to Ervwin this time, but to the rest of the crazed citizens; none of them dared to call his bluff.
But Ervwin simply sneered as he began to silently chant under his breath. I felt my chest hum erratically as his cane began to exhibit a nauseating inky pitch, it had the iridescence of a miasmatic black ichor; a color not found in nature.
"Come with me, we can speak more at our base camp." The Demon Queen said as she spoke to Ashari and me.
I looked over at Ashari and she subsequently looked at Tiki.
"The Roxik can't fit in the carriage, I'm sorry but it will have to find its own way out of here." She explained, she looked rather sorry as she did as if she did consider the chance of taking Tiki along in her carriage.
"It's fine, she can find us later." Ashari said as she unhooked Tiki from the carriage and then whispering something into Tiki's ear causing her to make a mad dash away from the town's edge.
"Go!" Stergos shouted at us as he swung his Morningstar hard onto the ground, causing a shockwave of ruptured earth to fly out into the crowd and Ervwin.
"Use better tricks you old dog!" Ervwin cackled as he finished his chant, and from his staff came a spout of fire that scorched the oncoming earth. But it only protected him and the immediate citizens next to him as the others were sent flying back from the rest of the shockwave.
I was the last one to board the carriage as I made sure everyone else got safely onboard.
"Close the door, Stergos will the handle the rest." She commanded as she opened a small porthole behind where the driver's seat was.
I felt unsure closing the door and leaving Stergos behind to fend for himself. But after seeing how resolute her faith was for him through her unwavering eyes, I relented.
I shut the door and took a seat on the plush bench inside the carriage, I was sitting directly across from the Demon Queen and the siblings; Ashari and I were sitting next to one another.
From outside we could hear the thunderous battle unfold, the neighing of the warhorses and the sounds of citizens shouting bloodlust filling the air in between.
After what sounded like another shockwave let loose, the carriage suddenly jolted forward, and a familiar voice spoke through the porthole.
"Took you long enough old man!" The Demon Queen complained to him through the porthole, but I could see from her trembling fist she was trying her best to hide her uncertainty of his survival.
"My apologies, your Majesty. That parasite has grown bold with his power, even I'm beginning to feel my age against him." Stergos said as he whipped the horses to go forward, causing them to break out into a full-blown gallop. Unlike Tiki's gentle trot, the gallop of the warhorses felt like a rollercoaster as all of us bounced around in the carriage shifting around due to their haphazard maneuvering.
We were now traveling at a breakneck speed at the tow of the Demon Queen, narrowly escaping the disaster that would've been Ervwin and the citizens of Quell.