The four archdemons assigned to Mia and me were all rather unique.
Azellath was, even by the standards of most demons, ancient. She had also spent most of her life buried away in one corner or another, avoiding any sort of training or military service. Really, what had dragged the emaciated skeleton of a woman all the way up to archdemon status was the sheer span of time she'd been around. Even at their weakest, demons always absorb a certain amount of mana, which was enough to facilitate some measure of growth.
You know, eventually.
The reason Mia snatched her up for us was Azellath's skillset. If you wanted curses, jinxes, and shady pacts of any kind, you went to Azellath. In fact, the only reason she'd emerged out of her literal cave in the ground was because she had run out of grimoires to study.
The second 'prestigious' officer under our direct command was Aggath. In many ways, Aggath was the exact opposite of Azellath. While the ancient demoness was withdrawn and reticent, Aggath was eager and ready to explore.
The art of cooking, that is. And the various food cultures scattered across the universe.
His rank? A result of eating one too many things he shouldn't in the name of researching the culinary arts. Aggath's girth made him resemble a barrel more than a person. Azellath, on the other hand was… well, skeletal.
Aggath was my very first pick, and one I was willing to fight all my fellows for. I mean, come on. Cooking! Mia and I hadn't had time to explore that recently, so having an experienced chef on hand was just a no-brainer.
Mia's secondary pick was Zorunaz. I admit, I questioned the wisdom of that choice on so many levels. He barely qualified as an archdemon. More importantly, his spell focus was something that I underestimated at first.
Music.
Zorunaz had been a prodigious musician amongst humans before he managed to ascend, and his talent only grew when he became a demon. Unfortunately, he didn't get many opportunities to ply his trade. Outside of very particular settings, Torment demons were not all about that party life. Quite the opposite.
If the poor man had ended up in a layer like Passion, he would have made it big. Zorunaz was a true artisan. He insisted on producing music for music's sake, rather than using it for terror tactics or whatever, like those legion drummers I'd seen on a couple occasions.
In Torment, with his brand binding him to the layer for one hundred years? Yeah… we found him starved of souls, low on mana (because he kept creating mana crystals and selling them), and with absolutely appalling hygiene. When he realized our recruitment standards were somehow lower than his current state, he couldn't sign up fast enough.
Zorunaz, fair-haired and kind of pretty when properly cleaned up, also happened to be the youngest of all the archmages we'd found. He was only just starting to push forty, and he'd ascended to demonhood and archdemon status over twenty years before. It was similar to the feat Mia and I had pulled off. The idiot had managed to drag himself all the way up to archmage, and then made a decent bit of progress there too… all because he was frustrated by his lack of instruments.
That's what had motivated his growth in magic. He'd kept pushing until he could conjure perfect symphonies out of thin air. His very soul was attuned to the concept of Music, causing notes to emerge from nothing and weave themselves together seamlessly. He had even managed to convert his regular mana into a very rare conceptual elemental mana before his ascension.
The one thing he hadn't achieved was to transform himself into something more than a boilerplate ascended demon. That was why he still looked like a very pretty man with flowing golden hair and golden horns, so…
Okay, part of my reluctance to accept him came down to niggling jealousy. But I did manage to get my huffiness under control long enough to listen to Mia's reasoning.
And that reasoning was good, damn it. It was amazing to watch Zorunaz singlehandedly charm our entire army of recruits into a state of cooperative calm. Especially since it was much easier to teach them stuff once they were in that state.
Mia also argued that he might be able to prevent demonic armies from falling into a Frenzy. We were obviously reluctant to test that, even on a battlefield, but I had little doubt that we'd eventually get a chance to. Unfortunately.
Our fourth and final archdemon pick was Varkuner, who I'd quietly claimed for myself and absolutely refused to share with anyone. He was just that invaluable to me. Why?
Varkuner was the ultimate paper-pusher.
He was an extremely proficient clerk and administrator, not to mention the ideal messenger or go-between. His Emotion, Lethargy, was perfect for subtly diffusing any tension that might pop up with other demons. In fact, he'd already handled several meetings with Vallinach's irate representatives, when the lieutenant general launched a one-man complaint campaign against Glaustro's decision to hog officer spots.
With Varkuner serving as my right hand, I never had to so much as think about doing paperwork again! Glaustro could gaze enviously upon my perfect assistant however much he liked. I was not going to give up the advantage Varkuner offered me. Not even when my colonel argued that I needed to know how to handle such stuff myself.
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I mean, sure, I was willing to double-check Varkuner's work on important occasions. But the longer I knew the guy, the more certain I became that he simply wouldn't allow himself to make any mistakes.
Varkuner had only one 'flaw': he was technically blacklisted by half the departments in the Legion of Torment. Somehow, some way, he always managed to dig up dirt on his employers… which he then promptly took straight to General Naberius. I didn't know for sure, but I gathered that Varkuner had gotten a whole lot of people in trouble for embezzlement and other shady deals.
Still, I didn't hold that against him. Especially since one of the departments he'd been booted from was Logistics.
I knew we could trust him. Our only secret was Divinity, and that was locked down safely on Breskwor. And even if we had any other 'dirt' to uncover… we were Varkuner's final chance. It was not in his best interests to mess this up.
Besides, he genuinely was an amazing administrator. And we needed one. Glaustro insisted that Mia and I both choose apprentices from the mortal recruits, so Varkuner was the perfect candidate to organize and present the information about our various options.
With how picky Mia and I were? He was not having a good time.
"How about this, my Lord and Lady?" The tired bureaucrat in his prim and proper robes placed yet another file in front of us. "Maklera, a lizard woman from the Swamps of Deeboch. Extremely deadly, stealthy, and credited with over a hundred personal kills during the initiation."
"Hmmm. And what's the black mark against her, since you didn't present her to us first?" I wondered aloud, scanning through the file.
"Ah…. Well… She is fond of eating the bodies of her slain enemies and using their remains to fashion various tools. Waste not, want not…" Varkuner chuckled drily, making me arch an eyebrow at him.
It was Mia that answered for both of us. "No."
Our poor assistant slumped. After all, he wasn't handling just my paperwork alone. Maybe I needed to do something nice for him soon? He was looking increasingly frazzled.
The problem was, neither Mia nor I could see ourselves training any of the mortals presented to us thus far. They were all just a bit too… 'individualistic.' That made for powerful abilities and achievements, but it also made for 'powerful' personalities, which we simply didn't want to deal with.
Really, why would anyone want to train a guy who free-style climbed one of the corpo skyscrapers, broke in, killed everyone on the top floor, and then got wasted on their booze supply? Or a woman who somehow managed to make acid rain down on a whole ass district from their sprinkler system, and then went dancing through the bloody carnage herself?
Both cases? Admittedly impressive. Were they people I wanted around myself and my girlfriend on a daily basis? Hells no!
Then, finally, we encountered the names of two promising apprentices.
Neither of their files were among the stack presented to us. The file where we learned of them belonged to a brute knight-style individual who had chosen an absolutely massive buster sword after his branding, and then used his unnaturally powerful soul and physique to unleash havoc everywhere he went.
What interested me and Mia was a note about two individuals who got caught up in his insanity.
Apparently, these two had managed to collect the required number of souls early in the invasion. They then tried to hide in a basement and wait out the rest of the chaos.
The buster sword mad lad blundered right through their hidey-hole. Not only did he bring down the six-story building above the hidden duo, but he simultaneously attracted the attention of no fewer than eight local droid defenders. The mad lad then brought some truly spectacular instinctive magic to bear, mostly body enhancement, and killed seven of the robots.
The duo had managed to survive the building collapse, crawled out, and killed the final droid together.
We didn't have their pictures. Hell, we didn't have much information on them at all, beyond their names: Ian and Revila. One some kind of canine shifter, and the other of elven descent. They didn't even share a world of origin. They had teamed up at random just to survive the initiation.
In spite of the meager details, Mia and I shared a long look. Then we ordered Varkuner to track them down so we could take the measure of them ourselves.
The demons had taken to the city of Bredingshire much more easily than I expected.
High-tech anything wasn't exactly a style that demons preferred. It simply wasn't efficient or cost-effective to rely on technology. Powerful tech was rare, expensive, and highly prone to breaking down in the field. You needed a specialist to craft and maintain it, and even then, it usually couldn't outperform a demon of archdemon status and higher.
You know, the demons who would actually have the time and money to acquire pieces of useful tech.
Some demons did meddle in combining technology with enchantment, but again, they weren't particularly popular. This was seen as an inferior approach to 'pure' enchantment. Pure enchantment provided powerful, durable items that could serve demons through their whole career. Meanwhile, even enchanted tech items had a much higher chance of catastrophic failure or damage. Technology requires a lot of moving parts, after all, and enchantment worked best on single, whole items.
Or so demons claimed.
Honestly? Dislike of tech was very much real in demonic society. They were more than content to ape at certain modern luxuries using enchantment, but borrowing it all wholesale? Nah. That was for mortals and their silly tinkering.
This just made it all the more fascinating to see a bunch of demons swiftly and efficiently organize around making the best use of the city's high tech skyscrapers. Granted, most of the city had been gutted and replaced by demonic establishments through the Will of The Abyss itself, but the bones of the buildings and their layout remained.
Somewhat predictably, the mortal recruits who wanted cheap and relatively safe accommodations were stuck in one of the many residential skyscrapers, now predominantly housing demonic inns and taverns. Plenty of said inns and taverns offered low-budget deals, such as giving each recruit a cot or a pile of blankets and letting them sleep in communally shared rooms. Some establishments even offered a single meal to accompany such royal sleeping arrangements.
It was in one such establishment that we found our two targets.
It was pretty late when we managed to set aside time to visit, and what we found intrigued both of us. The two obviously had some kind of shift system going on. The elf was currently awake and scanning the room for trouble, her expression fixed in a sneer, while her companion lay curled up by her side in slumber.
I knew the report had said he was a shifter, but seeing the massive, shaggy black dog kicking in his sleep by the elf's side still shocked me a little. It was a solid decision, though, choosing to sleep in that form. If trouble did come up, he could chomp first and then ask questions… potentially never.
"What do you think?" I directed the question to Mia, who was assessing the duo with narrowed eyes and a blank expression.
Slowly, ever so slowly, a small smile emerged.
"Yeah, they'll do."