Children of Terra

~Ides of March, 1000~ ~Frantic bustle~ ~Outer Dis, Ring of Wrath~ ~Sytry, 3rd prince~ Dis was entering pandemonium. The return of the mad Duke and his wanton slaughter of the old Pseudomonarchy had driven the nobles to flee. In itself, this wasn't an issue; as the power vacuum was an opportunity. No, like always, the issue was with the brat bastard Vassago and his tongue in father's ear.       Beelzebub commanded all the forces under him to hunt the Duke -- immediately, unquestioningly, and to brook no hesitance. This meant a breakdown of the command line, as the hunting parties scattered with fervor to each of their familiar grounds. Only a scant communique with brother Ipes lead Sytry here: the outer haven of Dis, on the shores of the Sygian marsh. The most direct route out of the Rings.       Pruflas was conniving. That bastard was prone to maneuver during duels, parlays, ceremony, in ways that made pinning him hard. It seems there was some urgency divined by Ipes to foresee the Duke rushing the Ring of Wrath, and Sytry being the physically fastest due to his griffon wings was elected to hunt here.       Personally, Sytry fucking hated it. Wrath smelled like shit, and it was a vast swamp of humid hell. It would get his robe sticky, dirty, and ruined -- in that order. But he could fly. At least the horseflies, mosquitoes, and gnats were scant up there.       If it came to that. Right now, Sytry was hunting in the outer haven of Dis. Judging from the directions souls and demons were fleeing, the Duke was ahead somewhere.       Sytry unfurled his wings and took off over the squared buildings in the suburbs. He flew high, encircling and looking especially at the shoreline of the buildings into swamp. He did not underestimate how fast the Duke could go when cornered. The basic rule of evasion: go fucking fast and break sight.       Several imps and winged-heteromorphs joined the 3rd prince in the skies over the buildings. Triangulating the disturbances down. There! A multi-story about 2/3 from the walls of Inner Dis.       Sytry whistled out in an echoing summon, signaling the target structure. Demons' eyes gleamed in joy as they began descending in a suffocating swarm down, down, until they were within firm arrow distance. Sytry's heart thrummed from the last time they tried this against Pruflas -- but that was in his home of Limbo, full of traps, right?       He hesitated, letting some imps go ahead as he flew down. He eyed the windowsills and door frames. Any one of them . . . A strange mirage was beginning to waft from the building. It looked like, heat waves?       Sytry flew back up, watching the hunters land. Immediately, clamor of surprise. He looked to the surprised imps, calling out: "What, by the Rings, what?"       One of the imps looked up at him: "It's - cold, sire."       What the fuck. Lazy fucks. "Stop fucking with me. Get in there."       Cries rang out as the first imps that landed tried to walk. When wet skin -- especially in hot, humid conditions -- is allowed to rapidly cool against a surface; the layer of water between the hot and cold becomes like a quick adhesive. Like a tongue on a dry ice cube in summer. In this case, the soles of the imps' feet were so firmly stuck to the stone rooftops and patios that the skin tore off when moving again.       The entire building wasn't just cold -- it was fucking frozen. In the middle of Wrath, one of the most miserably hot and muggy rings of them all. Sytry was internally terrified at how much stronger Pruflas had become. The rest of the winged demons began to wrap their feet in loincloths and other articles before landing to enter the building.       Sytry lost his confidence and remained high. Fucking Pruflas! What if he's already slipped out? This new nugget of thinking made Sytry circle around the building again, looking compulsively to the Black Marsh for disturbances. Surely he would disturb the souls if he entered? Fuck! He pointed to some other great-winged demons, bidding them back up.       "Yes, sire?"       Sytry looked to the swamp. "Keep a watch on the swamp. We can't rule out this whole thing is a distraction. We have to catch this bastard, no matter what. "The prince looked deep into his subordinates' eyes, making sure of the unspoken other half of that statement.       They nodded to each other as they flew to circle high overhead. Sytry sighed as he focused down at the frozen building again -- many of the hunters inside now. Most of the other hunters maintained circling formations around the building, scanning all that fled by. To their knowledge, the Duke hadn't mastered polymorphism and other like magicks -- visions provided by Ipes and Vassago supported that belief.       Still, why did he freeze the building through? Sytry was deep in contemplation when it happened.       Let us discuss thermobaric principles. Aerosol bombs. A relatively simple concept on paper. Take a fine, granulated oxidative substance -- like wheat dust -- pack it tightly and then scatter it in an oxygen-rich environment. When you ignite such a substance, the continued reaction of free ambient air mixing with the explosive rips a far more powerful blast than most other charges of like weight. They work best in confined spaces, where the vacuum effect of depleted oxygen sucks in more air from inside to fuel the reaction.       Spaces like the inside of a building.       Not like these concepts could be understood by either the Duke or his poor brother, but Pruflas did come to a similar conclusion. When you compress a singular aether element into a compacted space and then rapidly introduce its diametrically opposed principle element -- like ice and fire magic -- a similar effect occurs. Perhaps we could call it aetherbaric principle.       The demons hunting Pruflas would have called it fucking bullshit, but they were released back into constituent background aether before a single thought could be formed.       To Sytry, all he saw was what looked like a bubble form in a large radius around the building for just a split second. The next moment was a great upheaval as the flash-frozen stone blew apart when the ambient aether set off in a chain reaction by the unseen Duke.       Sytry was outside the lethal radius, but most of the flying hunters were not. To be trapped inside the bubble of a thermobaric bomb (or aetherbaric) means instant death due to asphyxiation. Imps, griffons, heteromorphs all were ripped apart as though flash-teleported into a true vacuum.       Which brings us to another fun concept. Matter loves equality. When you have a lot of matter in one space and not much of it in another, given free movement of course, matter will tend towards balancing within that space.       So, what happens when beings comprised of aether, like demons, are subjected in sub-milliseconds to a vacuum of zero ambient aether? First, their lungs prolapse alongside capillaries in the extremities. It looks much like their blood simply rips through their skin as it seeks to balance out the poor vacuum. Eyeballs become meatballs, skin becomes flesh red, and the weaker innards like the sinuses and lung tissues simply rip apart, flooding the body with blood.       Then, because the vacuum is caused by rapidly expanding reaction of dissimilar elements, their softened bodies rip into pieces -- depending on proximity; again, of course -- as the blossoming wreath of violence tears the surroundings in fury.       Sytry had to watch as nearly the entire hunting corps was atomized in a couple seconds. Bodies of demons just a few feet in front of him made horrifying squelches as the matter inside aided in fueling such a terrifying application of magia naturalis.       He himself was thrown backward in the sky as the shock wave consumed him. No longer sub-atmospheric; and thus alive, he was still immediately afterward sent into shock trauma as his body skipped along the top of the Marsh and settled in. The outlying hunters flew back in shock seeing, feeling, the now mushroom-clouding blast that ripped a crater in outer Dis. Spotting the unconscious form of the 3rd prince wasn't hard, given the Griffon's proclivity to white garments. They contrasted horribly with the murk of the Marsh. The flyers swooped to check if he was even alive; caste nature of demon kind not particularly fond of blatant disregard for high society. A royal was a royal, despite personal grudges.       The seriousness in the situation wasn't lost on any of them now. The duke pulled no punches. He must have killed 60 hunters at least, not to mention how many souls and dregs were obliterated in the surrounding area. A cat-and-mouse game of life and death. Shit, they lost vantage superiority. At least two, preferably three, would need to escort the limp body of Sytry back. The 3rd prince was firmly out for the count, joining Gaap. After a quick straw game to see who-does-what, demons scattered and resumed their duties. Hopefully with Sytry's body being returned to the palace, more reinforcements would arrive with confirmation of the Duke's whereabouts. ~Dust clouds and chaos~ ~Outer Haven of Dis~ ~Apheca, harpy~ Apheca flew from the swamp back to the outer district, and became shocked at what she found. Even through the collapses of buildings all around, she saw mutilation. A force that rivaled the 7. I will avenge my Lord for this, that puke will die! She suspected the fleeing firstborn would take this chance to break into the swamp; it was prime opportunity. She opted to place herself above the dust cloud and face the swamp instead of the city, scan the murk for disturbance. He has to flee at some point . . . The cloud was beginning to resettle when she saw out of her periphery a disturbance. The damned that were punished here were easily tested -- the hunters having prioritized Lord Sytry for just that reason. And now they were roiling the swamp quite a ways to her left. The bastard moves fast, doesn't he? She whistled a call for hunt, signaling to the location.       The skies filled with the screeches and calls of a bird pack as they descended to the area, soaring in arcs to find him. There! In a grove line a hunter pointed, and in between the trunks she glimpsed the figure. She would join the harriers while a few stayed high to relay back to any potential reinforcements. Swooping down to the canopy line, she settled to watch the others. The sky immediately filled with cries as branches soared upward. Apheca had to push off her perch to avoid branch-arrows. She decided to call into the swamp line: "Hey, dumb fuck! It's over for you! Just give up and we'll only beat you for a night, hah!"       A thwok as an imp beside her died. She scowled as she swerved down. Concealment goes two ways, asshole. Still, it peeved just about all winged demons to have to land under such conditions. Perhaps something in their nature? Immediately she was beset by mosquitoes and gnats. Rings damn it all! Apheca beat her wings around her as animals do with flicking tails -- beginning a trudge after the Duke.       The swamp was dark, being a punishment Ring of hell; it would always be designed in such a way to maximize torment of the souls within. A darkness that suffocates along the thick fucking humidity. Not to mention the souls of the wrathful, always driven to rage at such conditions. They gnashed from below the surface of the murk, enraged at yet another disturbance in a long list of burdening annoyances. The harpy snarled as she hacked her way through the fuckers. Begrudgingly, she internally admitted the two-way method of this route. Apheca knew her fellows would be quickly pissed off in such conditions, their foci split. And every little advantage the bastard duke exploited.       A winged draconid was at her side when screams began in the grove. One by one the hunters were picked off. Explosions? Small, suggesting improvisation. And by the pain agonies, maiming force. Apheca was there in Limbo for the great siege, having seen such tactics before. It became clear to her that the firstborn Duke wasn't just a blowhard. He really did adapt fast. Vicious little fuck.       Regardless, they had to pick up the slack. It was all going his pace, and he'd fucking waltz out at this rate. She called to the draconid as they hacked their way through the marsh. "This isn't working. We need to brave the sky again, take the risk. It'll only work if multiple demons join though. Don't be stupid, either, you know why."       "Come at him from different angles? We'd need at least three." The draconid raised her own voice, calling out for the fellows. "Hey! Anyone that can hear! We fly up on three and circle the fuck, or he's getting out and Lord Sytry takes the blame! Make our Lord proud, sisters! One . . . two . . . three!"       Branches snapped as around 8 demons flew high again. They regained bearing before nods and dispersing to encircle around the duke's vector. Apheca smiled at the sight, before a wide area scatter of stone bullets began to hail at them. Demons swooped and swerved at the sudden shift. Damn him, he obviously heard and began preparing counteroffensives! Some were unfortunately taken, plummeting back down into the swamp with resonant squelches. The survivors' morale was quickly dropping, what with all the choices of having to leave their fellow pack to rot in a shit hole -- or worse -- Lord Sytry was fond of female troops; and deprived degenerate souls given opportunity? Apheca muted a scream in frustration. She had half a mind to watch the Duke get raped -- the irony of an incubus getting the short end -- but now she settled on killing him on sight.       The swamp was running out as well. The veil demarcating the terminus was within view. How much fucking stamina does this guy have? Isn't he trudging through a damned swamp? Recovered from the assault, the remaining 5 hunters regained composure and began another chase, lower and within the canopy line. They could adapt too.       The encirclement tightened and Apheca swore she could see glimpses of the Duke every now and then just ahead. They were so close! Flurries of stone and branch darted around her, but adrenaline was in her blood now; she zoomed past and got closer and closer. And then the never-ending chuckle-fuck threw the next magic trick. A bunch of stones flew high, in the faces of the 5. Bright, like little fireflies in the dark swamp. A bad fucking sign when the context was the deign of a madman. Apheca flew down on instinct, folding her wings to dive into the murk. Other sisters flew up, or back, and one was too stunned to deviate.       Apheca watched from the surface below the muck line as the blossom of another explosion took the rest of her sisters. She didn't need clarity to see the bodies fly apart. The approaching shock wave ripped past, pulling her back up from the murk. The aether-ozone acridity stung her nostrils as she gasped back. This mother- . . . She didn't think any of her sisters were left now. He picked off the flyers to the last, as more and more had to join directly in the hunt lest the shame of letting the Duke flee fell on them all. And now it was just Apheca.       Her muscles stung in fatigue. Her back was sore to the high hells and back from flying so far, and her arms ached from hacking, her legs ached from trudging. This fucking guy . . . Did he master some method of recovery? Surely he can't have done this without getting tired? It took all her willpower to pull herself out of the muck -- and dammit -- fucking mosquitoes and gnats! Did they never stop?! Not even being a tormentor in the hells was without its frustrations. For the Duke to know that and so firmly showcase it made Apheca mad. At herself, at him, at it all. It was hard to not come this far and at least understand how he so easily escaped.       She sighed as the veil net began a characteristic thrum. He was already there. Fuck it all. They failed, and her poor Lord would take blame for this.       The Duke got out, and Apheca looked into the murk below her sweaty face, salt in her eyes, panting through the thick air.       She would make him pay for this.