Conquest Of The Fallen: Dark Dominions

[ONE SECOND REMAINING. . .]

Peitho played the part of Israfel's confidante very well. Like a faithful hotel concierge, always out to outsmart the Madame and inform the Lord, or Viscount, or Marquis, or General—or whomever the cheating bastard might be—of his wife's presence in their establishment before ever the said 'cheating bastard' could get caught in the act.

Always, the Mistress was one leg out the window right before the Lady wife swarmed in to confirm her doubts—only to find an empty, spickspan hotel room. Such places weren't [5 stars] for nothin'.

Tonight, Peitho was Rafel's concierge.

And though he didn't need keep his skullfucking the [Critch] butcher a secret; his harem would need to grow at some point, Rafel enjoyed it more being clandestine. Being sneaky with Mama Mia was part of her allure. Of course her one horn and mighty cleavage came in first. 'I wonder how she lost the first horn, huh? I'll remember to ask the next time we do this.'

Pop! He slid out from mama Mia's mouth with a very wet pop. Her sucking action left his balls drained.

Still, she licked at them, tonguing cherishedly his sac.

"Wow, look at her go," he thought.

[Lord host?] Peitho warned.

"Ugh." Rafel hastily pulled up his pants. He ignored the uncomfortable feeling. "You have to go." He sat up from his visitor MILF's prodigious naked titties, almost groaning when she covered them with her abandoned bra. She followed his line of sight to her bust and smiled. "Raincheck?"

"Yes, please."

Rafel asked, hearing footsteps approaching: muted echoes through the tinted glass. "Do I portal you?"

She laughed. "Oh no dear. I may be a butcher. But I am a Critch first."

Before he could react, she leapfrogged out the long window in the darkglass chamber. Her satyr hooves carried her dozens of feet high no human athlete could achieve. Rafel rose from the sofa and peered out the window. She was skirting the dome's grounds, clopping happily away.

"Damn, Mama Mia!"

All these he managed within the space of a second.

Peitho must've used [Time Glitch] or something because...

The door abruptly squealed open. Rafel turned from the window, catching Ravenna's cheery announcement as the three girls walked in.

"We're back." Hosanna wasn't with them. Cora trailed up to him, kissing his lips first and his lopsided smile. "Did you miss us?"

"Oh, you have no idea." He breathed in deeply her jasmine. Inwards, he said to Peitho, 'whew! That was close. Thank you. You're a proper wingman.'

[I do not wish for you to view me as a male creature.]

Rafel smiled big, while hugging Cora. "Trust me, I could never, even if I tried." He hurled the bags of meat to Aya by [shadow levitation]. "Get cookin', slave." The succubus took one look in: "Snails? Yippee!" She bounced away. "Hark!" Cora freed herself of Rafel, disentangling with a final swift peck of his earlobe. "—wait for me. Don't ruin that good meat, bitch."

"I can cook too." Aya yelled back. Israfel fell back on the sofa, this time with a really freaking big smile, watching his waifu [Bond] and his dyke concubine go at it. Soon enough, the aroma of wonderful snail soup filled the midnight glass suite.

Three days later, news came from Helladeep: from the Junker queen. Dementa, in her message to Rafel—blue ink inscribed to the back of a young Deathlie boy, which really looked like [Amorite] symbols—addressed that she had intercepted a fleet of Blackguards: Lilith's elite [Transmutant] soldiers, bearing the banners with the Morningstar crest; their single mission to seize the Kingslayer and the runaway Queen, and bring them back home.

Interpretation: Israfel and Ravenna.

[. . .I was only able to gain advantage over the troops because they lacked knowledge of the lay of the Badlands,] Dementa wrote.

Cora, who was intelligently reading the symbols pointed to one at the tail end of the boy's back:

"Here. Look at this. Dementa killed them all."

"How?"

Rafel stood with Lord Zaftig, all of them in the throne room.

"Spiked wheel crucifixion." Cora dropped the bombshell.

"Holy hell!" Hosanna offered.

"Yep. There's no turning back now," said her father.

"I didn't intend to." Rafel cemented. Then he gave command to the respective force leaders present. He turned to the Hijabi first. "Khalifa, dispatch fast riders to Séltand. Inform the Supreme Mother to double her armed supply of mercs. This wouldn't be the last of Lilith's attacks. If the Blackguard is already in the Badlands, we have to reach Grone before they do. He is the last Skullrider to unify—"

"Pfft," Lord Zaf scoffed. "Good luck with that one!"

Everyone turned to him. His daughter shook her head. "Sorry. Ahem." He cleared his throat.

Rafel went on. "I also want patrols at night here in Caer Mullhen. The cannons of your gateposts must be at full charge to blast always. Until I have need of a [Kaiju], Sakuharu shall remain nearby. The presence of an Epic monster beast will certainly give Lilith's fucks pause before they think to attack.

Give your weapons hoist! We ride by morning."

As he ended the briefing, everyone trusted enough by Zaftig to be in the room filtered to different corners of the stronghold.

Khalifa appeared in Rafel's chamber before dawn. As the fattest rooster crowed, she was clad in husky white shrouds—complete with her saintly turban—and standing over Rafel in bed. Hosanna was first to open her eyes.

"Fucking Visha!"

"Good morning, Sire. I have watered the camels to begin our travel. Our [Map Digitum] has also been generously updated by the resident scribe of Caer Mullhen with the current location of Grone's camp. Shall we leave?"

Khalifa spared no eye contact to the topless princess squirming about. Nor did she care for the three other naked girls in bed with Rafel.

Dementa had given her only one job: secure the Rebel Lord until [Mission Success!]

In twenty minutes, Israfel and his company were riding again with the dawn. The Second and Third Skullriders of the Triumvirate tribes were with him. And now at that was left between him and the largest terrestrial army on the Continent to ever ride into the Capital was the First leader of the Badlands Triune, [Indomitable Survivor] Grone the Grevious.

Rafel just added the last part because of the stories and all.

They must've been riding for hours under the hot undern sun without reprieve. No clouds bothered to appear to block out a measure of the scalding rays; neither did the company relent. They pounded harshly across the sands, footprints and buzzer prints of both beast and machine bikes left in the hazy dust.

"You sure this is the same camels we had coming in to Caer Mullhen?" Cora asked Khalifa over a small handkerchief she held to her nose. For all her outward strength, she was quite delicate. These parts, she only showed to her harem master, Rafel.

Khalifa answered through her Hijab: "these beasts might not look like it but their embryos were seeded with stallion genes at birth. On the outside, its plain, dumb camel. But fire it with a pint of spice or coffee, and well," she laughed small at the mightier camel keeping up with the throttling of the escort bikes riding ahead, "you have this."

"The Badlands isn't all wild country. You'd like the perception of the uncivilized nation to remain in the hearts of those who don't know better." Rafel observed. "But I see you. It reminds me of something a close female friend said to me about this place."

"What was it?" Aya bridged; she was more eager in the knowing of which female her [Sire] referred to as close.

Rafel stared into the stretch of dunes—the mirage when he replied. "That I was meant to be here, whatever that means."

The rest of the ride went on in silence. As the girls lounged under the great umbrella, Rafel shut his eyes and tried to remove as much heat as he could from his hellish body without suddenly causing the nearest mortal to explode in a sludge of red organs which the sands of the desert would greedily drink up. He was in luck that from Ravenna to Corazón, they were all [Nocturnes].

Not mortal.

At about the last quarter of the day, the company had just started again their journey following a quick rest and lunch by a shallow creek they found winding through a mangled and dry fig forest. The day was just three hours of meeting twilight and not everyone was looking forward to the cool winds to begin blowing. But this anticipation of relief was cut short when just as soon as they had come out from the other end of the thicket, traversing spiny giant lizards lounging on rocks, and maneuvering the jagged outcroppings that a sudden dust storm blew their way.

Whoosh!

It came up fast. They were blinded for a minute by it. There was no breeze. How then this fucking brown fog?

"This shit burns," said Ravenna, rubbing her arms down. Khalifa pulled her veils tighter about her neck and face.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

Rafel smelled a rat. He quickly unleashed his Influence, searching the near vicinity with [Earth Fingers]: an echolocation ability he'd picked up from the Mole-men when he'd swiped their DNA.

"Riders!" He declared. "Approaching fast at north and south bends. I counted two dozen. But could be more. LOOK ALIVE!" He hailed the front march, raising his voice to be heard by them.

His pronouncement was out of the blue, but they all reacted quickly. He guessed everyone too had suspected the dust storm was abnormal.

"There are not many anomalies in the Bonelands, but this is." Khalifa said. "The storm is manmade. I'm thinking they exploded a [Charge grenade] not too far from here. The rusty tint in the air is common with low-grade cores like that. Try to breathe as lightly as you can."

The dust was clearing and the area sharpening into focus. Sure enough, the company saw shadows of men skirting in the paths. They were rising from their hiding places like angry trees. The shadows had hands that grasped at throttles. And not one second later, Rafel heard them pump up their bikes: BRUUUUM! BRRRUUUUMMMMM!

Fifty men charged out from nowhere. And women too. They were wearing grotesque cave masks. It made look like hideous plague doctors.

All the dust fog rolled away. The sun beat down again. The stretch of the place the caravan stood became clear as could be; Rafel found they stood on a flatland. It was a mountains region. Still barren though. The bandits began taking off their masks. Khalifa pulled down her veils an inch. She frowned and scoffed. "Highwaymen. I hate these motherfuckers."

She looked around to make sure everyone was okay. No shots had been fired yet.

"See the hideous incisions on the sides of their heads?" She told aloud to Rafel. She waited for him to notice and nod. "Yeah, those are their tribal marks. These are the Tribes of Sorcese. Mountain people."

"Just to be clear," said Rafel, "this is still Lord Zaf's territory?"

"Yes, Ser." A Deathlie girl in front, tatted up to her forehead in red ink tossed back. She was part of the caravan's front march.

"Good." Rafel smiled darkly. Then he instructed all of the company. "Wait here."

The gangs were still throttling their frightful metal excuse of machine-vehicles, causing an annoying amount of dust particles to dangle perpetually in the air. One of the biker dudes did a full Eight with the back tyres of his tricycle. Then he planted on his sun-burnt, dry-cracked, bleached face a grin Rafel knew he wouldn't hold for long, and patted the coyote skull between his handlebars.

Rafel stepped up to man in the fifty-gang fleet: a bear. Black as the soot on Rafel's boots—and this wasn't racist or anything.

This fella was dark!

The black hulk was full goth in his regalia and sat on his [Marauder S Class] bike with the silver streams, one sturdy leg down in a classic Bonelander pose.

He chewed on a dry chicken leg.

Rafel took one look at the bone and wanted to say: 'Oh, my friend, where did all the meat go?'

These tribes ate vultures he heard—and people.

Rafel looked upon the black outlaw, visibly taller. "Hey. We want no trouble. We only seek passage through these mountains. We're headed up to Grone's hill. I have business with the Skullrider. Let us pass and we'll forget you damn near choked us to death with your cheap [smoke cores]. I MIGHT FORGET." Rafel hardened. Real fire pit into his eyes.

The black hulk did something he didn't expect at all: he reared back, put out the bone in his mouth and did a full belly shaking laugh.

"Let you pass?" He laughed harder. He belched, his massive waist bouncing up and down.

The dude had some stomach there!

The marauder finally brought his head back down; his own eyes were evil obsidian. "You want to pass," he offered with no smile. "That depends. You got a [Panda] idol?"

Rafel didn't think he could get any angrier. But he did. Money? FUCKING REALLY? A [Panda] idol was a cool 1 million survivor coins in any [Thrift Shop] of available systems in the Badlands. It had become a standard unit. Rather than say one mil. you just said a [Panda].

One million survivor coins was... [10 000 000] soul coins.

Hell nah!

Rafel chose his demonic side this time.

"Peitho. Unleash THE CAULDRON!"

Many things happened at once. But the most evident was that the black dude's body lit like hot embers from the inside. His oiled tar skin began to steam, like a boar hissing above a furnace. His veins glowed red as magma rushed in his veins.

[Helflame].

He tried to speak but smoke poured out instead. He was boiling from the inside. When he realized what was happening, he took another VERY SLOW look at the people he just tired to rob. Rafel saw his midnight eyes instantly bulge. 'Yeah, motherfucker. Look again.'

[The Cauldron] was a Red Titan Influence.

And the tribes of Sorcese were just realizing that the redhaired traveller was the. . .Red Titan.

"Fuck—"