Knowledge Is Power 2 (1/2)

Xera confidently strode towards the Namhel Brothers Bank main office. Her attire for today was one of an upper-class human lady wearing an extravagant coat who carried herself with dignity. Today she had decided to play the part of a foreign big-shot here to drop in on ‘an old friend.’ It was hardly conspicuous as Reginald Namhel, despite being secretly a doppelganger crime boss, was sure to have all kinds of connections. Or perhaps it was more accurate to say that it was because of the man’s true nature that such connections existed in the first place.

Regardless, the djinn would not find it difficult to arrange a face-to-face with the affluent banker despite wearing an unfamiliar face. The guy had a private network of shapeshifters under his command, so he was unlikely to decline a meeting with a stranger who suddenly showed up. It could have been one of his agents with an urgent report, after all.

Once inside the bank, she pulled one of the guards aside and arranged to have herself escorted to Reggie’s office. Once there, she couldn’t help but notice the new secretary, an elven woman with eye-catchingly vibrant blue hair and rather thick eye glasses. It would appear the boss was busy right now, so the two of them exchanged pleasantries and made inconsequential small talk while Xera waited. When the time came, the ex-succubus finally entered Reggie’s official place of business.

“Ah, yes, do come in!” said the old-man-looking monster as he walked up to greet her. “To what do I owe the pleasure, Ms Knightley?”

Xera wasted no time and spoke the moment she shut the door behind her.

“Would you kindly tell me what your agents found out about soulstones, old boy?”

Reggie’s eyes glazed over and his pleasant expression turned dreadfully neutral. He returned to his desk, sat down behind it, and reached under it, likely to pull up a file or folder with his findings. The motions were very stiff and somewhat unnatural, but Xera didn’t think too much of his behavior. She was already familiar with it, as this was hardly the first time she’d taken advantage of the brainwashed monster.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t the only one who had done so.

Rather than reaching into a drawer, Reggie instead flipped a hidden switch on the underside of his desk. This caused the carpet beneath his visitor to light up in a circled hexagram pattern, with demonic runes written within in all six of its points. Xera immediately recognized this formation, as it was something her Master had practiced on for its Demonology Skill. She moved to get away, but hit an shimmering purple wall that hadn’t been there before.

Her reaction had been too slow, leaving her caught in a Seal of Demonic Binding. Just as the name suggested, it was a trap designed to hold demonic entities like her. It not only imprisoned her, but made it impossible to use magic as well. She tried calling out to her Master, but that triggered a secondary inscription, one in the shape of an octagon , which lit up around the initial one with a crimson glow. Meaning this was actually a Seal of Greater Demonic Binding, which had the added effect of interfering with her inherent demonic abilities. Such as the ability to telepathically communicate with her Master.

The djinn placed a hand on the shimmering barrier’s inner side and began pushing. Even if her body was feeble, the bountiful chaotic energies her body was made out of should have been enough to help her break this thing. Unfortunately, it felt like pushing against a cliff. The only thing Xera’s efforts had done was cause her shapeshifting to come undone and reveal her voluptuous and blue-skinned real self. Whoever had put this up had poured a ridiculous amount of mana into it to be able to contain one of Boxxy’s familiars this thoroughly. Must have been rich, too, as the reagents required to prepare a Seal of Greater Demonic Binding were neither cheap nor easy to come by.

After considering the time, place and resources involved, the ex-succubus could think of only one culprit that could stage all this.

“Foundation of the Founding Father, was it?” she said loudly.

The door to the office and two hidden passages Xera wasn’t aware of all burst open at the same time. A number of individuals wearing red and black hooded robes swarmed into the office, all of them pointing their staves at the demon in the middle. It would appear this Seal wasn’t the work of one individual, but an entire team of magic users pooling their energies. No wonder it was so tough. As for Reggie, he just sort of kept sitting behind his desk in a spaced out manner.

*Clap Clap Clap*

A man different from the others stepped forward while doing a slow clap. His face was obscured by a mask and his body was clad in some sort of dark gray sneaking suit. His silhouette was definitely that of a male adventurer, an elf judging by the pointy ears poking out of the sides of his head.

“Jolly good guess,” he said in a somewhat mocking tone. “It is good to see you still have your wits about you, Xerabadada- Xerabadabudo- Ahem! Let’s just stick with Xera, shall we?”

The demoness glared at the man so hard that one would think she was trying to melt his face off with a mystical eye beam of some kind.

“It… is you, isn’t it?” said her captor while rubbing his masked chin. “Well, your coloration and face are the same as the last time I saw you, so it’s close enough I think.”

Xera kept staring daggers into him with her arms crossed, but didn’t utter any words.

“Don’t try to remember me, we’ve never met face-to-face,” explained the masked elf. “I have seen you fight beside the Sandman during the war, though, so I’m quite certain it’s you. Just as I’m certain you are- or perhaps I should say were the same succubus that once served Tol-Saroth himself.”

The djinn’s eyes opened wide. She had a very bad feeling about what was to happen, so she decided enough was enough and reached up to grab her own horns.

“Shadowbind!”

However, the magic casters gathered there used a synchronized Spell on her at the sudden movement. Chains forged out of pure darkness wrapped around the demoness, binding her legs and arms tightly against her body and preventing any extraneous movement. Now unable to commit suicide by snapping her own neck, the weakened demon could do little but fall to the ground.

“Fuck!” she cursed. “You shitheads have another thing coming if you think I’m going to betray my Master to join your shitty club!”

“Such fierce loyalty from a demon! As expected of the Sandman’s familiar! Or perhaps I should call him Boxxy T. Morningwood, eh?”

“What kind of idiotic name is that? My Master would never stand for being given such a shameful label!”

“You don’t need to try so hard, demon. We recovered some data from that facility your owner put on ice. We know for a fact that they killed, revived and imprisoned a doppelganger variant named Boxxy T. Morningwood, who they identified as the same mercenary calling himself the Sandman!”

Technically speaking it was the rumor mill that gave the shapeshifter that nickname, but Xera wasn’t about to start correcting them. Divulging any information under these circumstances was bad, no matter how small, insignificant, or false it seemed to be. Insults were another matter entirely, of course.

“We thought he’d fled the country since he hadn’t shown himself since,” continued the elf. “That’s when we noticed our resident pet monster troupe had been looking into soulstones. Now why do you suppose he would be doing that, eh?”

Once the Foundation had caught wind of this, it didn’t take them long to determine Boxxy had ‘befriended’ Reggie. They couldn’t get the details out of him since he had been ‘kindly asked’ to forget them. However, using various eyewitness accounts and written records, they were still able to determine that a mysterious woman had visited him during the times he had no memories of. Knowing the Sandman’s careful personality, they determined he wouldn’t dare show up in person to such a potentially dangerous place. He, or rather ‘it,’ was undoubtedly using its shapeshifting familiar as an intermediary, so the Foundation quickly and quietly prepared a trap to catch her.

The djinn, who was struggling to piece this chain of events within her rotten head, quizzically raised an eyebrow at her captor.

“You actually found out about our little side project?”

“Of course! Did you honestly think an organization such as mine wouldn’t be keeping an eye on our investment?”

“A little,” she shrugged within her bindings. “I mean you guys made a bunch of really stupid mistakes recently.”

“Oh? Like what?”

“Well, first of all, your pet project over there got my master killed. Then you lot were stupid enough to revive it, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of trained personnel and what I can only assume is a fuck-ton of resources. I’ve seen goblin villages with more foresight than you retards.”

“You were dealing with another department of the Foundation. You will not find us such easy prey.”

“Oh, really? Is that why you’ve spent the last while monologuing instead of running for your pathetic lives?”

The demon’s shit-eating grin made a chill run down the elf leader’s spine, prompting him to immediately turn to his colleagues.

“Secure her restraints and ready the portal. We’re leaving before her Master catches wind of us.”

“It’s a bit too late for that, spooky,” called out Xera with a chuckle. “Oh! Also, there’s one more mistake you filthy twigs made. None of you are covering the window.”

Something more akin to a shimmer rather than a shadow flew into the office the instant she said that by crashing through the window directly behind the comatose-like Reggie. There were a series of loud slashing and gnashing noises as the ‘something’ cut a swath through the room. Three of the magic Casters were eviscerated and the runes inscribed beneath the carpet were torn up at nearly the exact same time. The weakened Seal of Greater Demonic Binding was then forcibly dispersed and Xera’s head was effortlessly separated from the rest of her body.

This all happened so quickly and seemingly with a single motion, making it impossible even for the trained operatives to react in time. Daggers were thrown and Spells were chanted at the barely visible intruder, but they only struck air as the ghost-like presence retreated almost as suddenly as it had appeared. The only things it left behind were a wrecked office, a trio of heavily injured elves and a few stray strands of webbing attached to the busted up windowsill.

“Damn, he got us!” cursed the elven leader as he took in the suddenly silent surroundings.

“Sir! Project Lighthouse!” called out one of the subordinates.

The elves had only now realized that their assailant had done more than prevented them from capturing the sluttiest of the Sandman’s familiars. He or she had also nabbed the doppelganger posing as Reginald Namhel on the way out, depriving them of an extremely valuable resource.

“Shit! He really got us! Grab the injured and get us out of here! We need to leave before the big guy decides to show up personally!”

This lot were no match for a monster of Boxxy’s caliber, and they were completely aware of that. That was why they had opted to go after its familiar in the first place. The Wizards in the group therefore wasted no time as they opened up a Gate Spell on the floor. The strike team then jumped into the portal, retreating to an undisclosed location to lick their wounds with their tails between their legs, leaving the mess for the proper authorities to clean up.

“Master, I got Reggie! I dosed him with my paralytic venom, so he shouldn’t be waking up anytime soon.”

“Great work, Claws. Bring him to the dungeon, but make extra double-triple-mega sure you’re not followed.”

“Hehehe! I won’t let you down, Master!”

Things were understandably a lot more upbeat on the Mimic’s side of things. Drea was practically giddy, not only because she got praised, but because it felt good to finally use her Venomous Sting Skill for its intended purpose. As for how she had arrived at the scene in such a timely manner, that was because Xera had noticed the new ‘secretary’ was acting oddly and notified Boxxy something was amiss. The Mimic then somewhat regretfully pulled Claws away from getting the ‘groceries’ and ordered her to back up its Snack at Reggie’s place.

The djinn’s suspicions were confirmed when she suddenly went silent and her Status became inaccessible. Luckily she was able to stall those guys long enough to allow the webstalker to arrive on the scene and ‘free’ her. It was a tasty outcome to be sure, but the overall situation was anything but. Boxxy decided it needed to get the details on what happened to its familiar from the demon in question as soon as possible, so it did something a little bit out of the ordinary.

555-69-26999-2378-24378

*Ring Ring*

*Click*