Imthala really did work fast when she was motivated. A mere two days after we got the info about the Kettunens, Mia and I were summoned to Breskwor so we could prepare for a visit to the family the following day.
The Kettunens, of course, weren't on Breskwor. The meeting would take place at their family estate in the Abyss, somewhere in the idyllic countryside of Torment. So why were we summoned to Breskwor, you may ask?
Well, apparently, it was so an ice demoness menace could prod away at us in an attempt to get us to 'dress like civilized demons rather than warmonger savages.'
I resented that. The armor Yules had made for us was beautiful and fashionable, not 'savage'!
Though… it did very clearly send a message that we were ready to fight. And the clothes I wore underneath were of high quality, but admittedly a bit plain, considering they were solid black. That was clearly unacceptable for the slave driver with a penchant for ice magic.
By the time she was done with us, I wanted to scream.
She'd stuffed me into some apparently fashionable mix between a yukata and a mage robe, all flowing fabric and dramatic swooshing. The whole thing had a scale pattern going on. With the nifty dark blue color and the way the scale pattern shimmered with my every move, I could be bullied into admitting that the ensemble looked good.
While my clothes obscured my figure and turned me into a cloud of scintillating scales, Mia's outfit did the opposite. Imthala had managed to stuff the cat demoness into a much more close-fitting robe/yukata combo. With no armor to get in the way, the ensemble showed off Mia's figure to perfection.
I may have snuck more than a few glances. Mia's expression always fluctuated between smugness and indignation whenever she caught me looking, but the latter always won out quickly. Then the cat demoness would go back to glaring at the icy bully who had forced her into this getup.
When Imthala was done harassing us, she insisted that we avoid carrying our weapons openly.
"Remember! Vallinach, thanks to my amazing self, already knows about a potential meeting between you and 'traitors in his midst'," the ice demoness said cheerfully. "That means he's probably going to set up spies around their estate, and maybe even soldiers. If you're not wearing weapons, you show off that you trust the Kettunens enough to meet with them 'undefended.' Plus, if Vallinach's people spot you without your weapons, maybe they'll feel brave enough to ambush you or something."
I huffed, but agreed, only because I could summon my soul blade to me easily. I could then quickly conjure anything we needed out of its spatial storage.
I still wasn't particularly happy with the fact that we were walking into enemy territory 'undefended', but… needs must. I was willing to do a lot to get one over Vallinach.
Mia clearly agreed. Once our outfits were sorted, she was practically vibrating with the need to move. I was forced to wrap her up in an enchanted blanket and then capture her in a cuddle just to get her to settle down the night before our scheduled visit.
The following day, we portaled into Torment in the early morning hours, then hired an old-timey open carriage pulled by some breed of monstrous horse imps to get us to our destination. It was an expensive endeavor, but very much a necessity. The Kettunen estate lay well outside the city proper.
As we left the city behind, I suddenly realized this was the very first time I was venturing beyond its confines and into the rest of Torment. I felt a little ashamed, honestly. I'd spent so much time wandering the wilds of Desire during the angelic invasion.
Then again… it wasn't like we had a ton of free time. Ever.
Regardless, I found the endless fields of crimson, black, and golden flowers stretching outside the city to be enchanting. Sure, they were rather grotesque. They featured enough thorns and teeth to make it clear that they subsisted primarily on a meat diet. But I still saw a kind of beauty in them.
Even when I watched some kind of bird imp land on a flower and then get enveloped in its petals while blood erupted across all the nearby plants.
"They're growing well, those flowers," our coachman laughed, even as the breeze wafted a coppery scent our way. "They get fed often from all the corpses the city produces. Some say they spawned from the corpse of a powerful plant magic user originally, but that was long enough ago that no one really knows how they appeared."
He kept regaling us with other origin theories for the flowers as we rolled along. Mia and I listened, of course, and even chimed in occasionally. Me because I was bored, the cat demoness because she clearly wanted a distraction from her eagerness to reach our destination.
The flowers eventually petered out in favor of more 'normal' plant life. A few trees appeared, then quickly thickened into a proper forest. The plants were predominantly a royal purple color, with spots of blue, a few shades of dark green, and some luscious lavender flowers whose honey-like scent we could actually catch whiffs of, even from far away. The trees, meanwhile, had pitch black bark with dazzling, crystal-like emerald leaves that refracted light all over the place.
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The enchanting sight was only enhanced by a thickening blanket of fog, which reacted fascinatingly with the trees' lightshow.
About two hours out from the city, the trees and the fog both thickened even further. Laughter began to ring out from within the sea of white and flashing emerald, just loud enough to linger at the edge of our hearing and make us wonder where it came from.
From the corner of my eye, I caught the silhouette of a child with a fan of tails trailing behind them, but they vanished when I turned in that direction.
Mia huffed and grabbed my hand. I felt her dream mana wash over me, countering the illusion and wiping out both the fog and the odd laughter. The forest around us lightened considerably, letting me spot several curious imps peeking at us from behind trees or within the grass.
All of them were harmless animal variants. I couldn't detect much actual sentience in them. Even their souls were simplistic, weak things. They were either very young, or specifically bred to stay docile and stupid.
You never could know with demons. But considering I mostly saw bunnies and the like, and we were approaching a family supposedly descended from foxes, well…
"This is as far as I can take you," the coachman announced. "Any further, and the fog will stop playing nice. If you're really invited, you'll arrive at their estate in less than five minutes on foot. Need me to wait for you here?"
I considered, then shook my head. "Nah. We've got it from here. Thank you for offering, and for the ride. It was pleasant."
I tipped him heavily as we hopped out of the open air vehicle, and even Mia favored him with a smile. We watched him turn the carriage around and begin to head off back to the city, grinning all the while.
I really did tip him heavily.
The path wasn't difficult to follow. It was literally the only way to go, and it had even been properly paved all the way from the city. In fact, it really was funny how worried about the fog the coachman was, considering the idyllic state of our surroundings after Mia's little intervention.
"We should hire him again some time just to take us around the layer and sightsee," I mused as we rounded a bend and glimpsed a pair of massive gates only a hundred meters away.
Mia didn't respond. She was peering eagerly at the pair of demons standing by those gates, waiting to greet us.
Our approach gave us plenty of time to examine the two demons of opposite genders. I wasn't particularly impressed. They were both archdemons, sure, but they looked pretty plain, with no particularly special characteristics showing. Ascended, probably, since even the first generation of Abyss-born demons tended to exhibit some changes in form.
From what Imthala had coached us through in her flurry of preparation, the two demons chosen to greet us were likely meant as a slight. A sign that we weren't worth the time of even the family's more prized servants.
I just grinned maliciously at that, because really, it wasn't like we were there to make friends. I was looking forward to the moment they realized we'd set them up!
"Greetings, visitors," the guy drawled, affecting his best bored tone of voice and shielding his soul heavily. In spite of that, I could see well enough through his shielding to know he was terrified. He was deliberately slighting a pair of Barons, after all. "May I see your invitations?"
I laughed in his face, letting my amusement shine through for all to see, though I did dig up the invitation. It had been delivered to us in an old-fashioned envelope and everything. I even suspected it had been penned with an actual quill or brush.
The demon sniffed imperiously down at the invitation, nodded, and then turned and walked straight towards the gates. They swung open at his presence. Mia and I followed, still holding hands. The other servant brought up the rear, giving off the impression that we were being herded into the house rather than politely shown in.
I couldn't hold back a devious little snicker. Mia's eyes found mine, shining with her own brand of mischief.
The sprawling Kettunen mansion was wreathed in magical mist and shadows. (Which, thanks to Mia, we could see right through.) It was a five-story 'main' house with two four-story wings. The whole thing was very Japanese in its architectural style, with lots of pagoda elements, eaves, gables, and lacquered wood.
Like the forest, the grounds stretching between us and the mansion were filled with animals. Except instead of primarily 'prey' beasts, here were all manner of foxes. I recognized some as having come from Breskwor. Those were the most magically potent and most obviously of the tailed variant. Still, all the other little canine creatures did have some mana in them.
I was also under the impression that we were not supposed to be able to see much of what we were getting a glimpse into. In addition to the mist, dream mana hung heavily over the entire complex, bewitching and misleading all who didn't have the express permission of the manor's owners to peek.
Well, and another powerful practitioner of the same mana type, of course.
The realization did make me a bit more wary, but Mia sensed it and just squeezed my hand a little tighter. Her reassurance immediately helped me relax.
We were led into the mansion proper, then through bustling hallways full of servants who ignored us completely. They just went about their tasks as if we weren't even there. I was finally convinced we were, in fact, being thoroughly snubbed when we were admitted into a small waiting room, given no instructions or reassurances at all, and then were left alone with the door closed.
"Not very smart, are they, to leave two Barons unsupervised?" I shook my head, quite aware of the few monitoring spells that had snapped to life the second the door was closed. Like I couldn't break said spells in my sleep if I wanted to. Maybe they were counting on the dream mana that was supposedly keeping the spells hidden?
"Mmm." Mia inclined her head towards the nearest spell array subtly engraved onto the wall in the form of a pleasing fox mural. "Should I?"
I shook my head. "Nah, let's see what they —"
I was cut off by a loud boom as what felt like the entire manor quaked violently. Another bout of quakes and several more explosions followed, one of which made every mana-reliant item and enchantment in the room shudder.
Someone was pulling on tremendous amounts of mana out there, and I couldn't hold back the smirk that stretched over my face. Mia mirrored it, looking into my eyes with elation and utter bloodlust.
"Well, well, well." My smirk widened into a full-on grin. "Imthala was right."
Mia giggled, already bouncing in place at the thought of battle. "They can't be that dumb. Can they?"
As another explosion echoed outside, I could only assume that they were, in fact, that dumb.
Whoever Vallinach had sent our way must have decided to take the chance and stage an attack, just because Mia and I looked to be missing most if not all of our gear. They were either incredibly idiotic, or dangerously impulsive. Possibly both? Or maybe it was their bruised pride in the face of 'betrayal' that had pushed them over the edge?
I didn't particularly care. What mattered was that we had managed to provoke a reaction more successfully than either of us anticipated.
All we had to do now was make the most of the chance they were offering us.