Rolled 3, 16, 4, 19, 18, 13, 8, 17, 4, 12 = 114 (10d20)
>>5129198The awkwardness is interrupted yet again, however, by the appearance of another. At first, you take the slim, slight figure for the tattooed waif who served as your doorman last time you were here—even in an unseasonable jacket, they are too small and slight to be the demonic giant you saw before! When the corvid flutters to them and a tattooed hand reaches out to accept it lighting upon a wrist, you believe you are right…
But then the bird who guided you to this place goes stiff, then limp, and topples over; it is dead, or returned to death. The waif pulls back her hood, and you see a face without eyes or mouth—with only shifting, tattooed facsimiles of such features, moving across a face that is entirely skin.
‘How do you like my new outfit?’ The Incubus asks, in a voice without sound. ‘I don’t mean the robes, of course. They’re nothing special. But this girl…’
‘Hey!’ Irinnile snaps. ‘There’s only room for one voice in hotstuff’s head!’
‘And here I thought succubi LIKED cozying up to greater powers… Like a tick. Like a leach.’
Irinnile seethes, gnashing her teeth in the theatre of your mind. You pull back your own hood.
“I am here to make good on our pact,” you announce.
The Incubus tattoos form an puckered ‘o’ of mock-surprise with black lips, spreading into a cat-like grin of jagged black lines.
‘I know,’ it says. ‘I’ve been watching you. Obviously.’
“Obviousssly,” you agree, without humour.
‘You didn’t yet bring me my demon playmates,’ The Incubus notes.
“But I gave you Princce Rufosss,” you point out.
‘Hmmmhmhm, yes,’ The Incubus laughs happily, tilting its head as its attention drifts… Elsewhere. Perhaps to the fragment of its ectoplasm dwelling within the Prince of Hawksong.
“The demonss, I will guide to you ssoon enough—but first, I need ssomething more from you.”
The Incubus creates eyebrows of black-and-blue ink to lift in surprise over exaggerated eye-spots.
“I have liberated more than demonss,” you begin, and then you explain—in succinct detail—the acquisition of a dragon-hybrid chimera of great size and greater importance, and several other relics, hidden in a bayside cave.
‘And you wish for me to hide these treasures away from prying eyes?’ The Incubus asks. ‘I can do that, I suppose… But it’s a lot of faith to put in little old me, is it not? Given our history, and your misgivings? Why not use some of those Engelson Storehouse Company resources’
You say nothing.
‘Am I THAT good a kisser?’ the Incubus teases, the tattooed grin returning, and then the puckered lips again.
“Well, speaking of the ‘kissss’, there ISS one other things you can do for me,” you say, stepping forward with a serious expression. “You owe me lessssonss.”
The incubus laughs--a booming sound that reverberates through your bones and blood-vessels without ever touching your ear.
'Very well. Pucker up, little snake.'
