The forest road… which had been little more than a scar of hard packed earth between ancient trees, now finally began to widen. The oppressive canopy of branches that had stretched for miles thinned, allowing slivers of pallid sunlight to pierce the gloom and spotty the path ahead.
The first sign of Mavis Village… was not a sight, but a sound: the distant, rhythmic thunk of an axe biting into wood. Then came the smell, a simple honest scent of woodsmoke and turned earth that was a world away from the sulfur and blood of the Abyss.
They emerged from the tree line to find the village nestled in a shallow valley… cradled by a gentle river that shone like a discarded ribbon of silver. This was no fortified town of spires and suspicion like Varnmoor. Mavis was a place of rough hewn timber and mossy stone, a settlement that seemed to have grown from the forest floor itself rather than being built upon it.
Smoke curled from stone chimneys, and the sounds of life: a barking dog, a child's laugh, the creak of a water wheel drifted on the breeze. It looked peaceful… It looked soft.
Aamon's hand found Ciel's, his grip tightening instinctively. For a fleeting second… he missed the simple, trusting weight of a kitten clinging to his leg. His ruby eyes scanned the roofs... The last place that looked this peaceful guarded their tranquility with a hidden violence. After a lifetime in a cage and a world of pitchforks… he knew better than to trust a quiet door or a smiling face.
Yet, they had to go… Taking a breath that did not settle his nerves, Aamon took the first step down the slope toward the village. Every step was a gamble. Every shadow between the cottages held a potential threat… Mavis Village promised shelter... But for a demon and his abyssal elf companion, it could just as easily become another kind of trap.
The weight of the village's silence was heavier than the forest's gloom... Aamon's grip on Ciel's hand was tight like a vise=. He leaned closer to Ciel, his voice a hushed whisper meant for her alone.
"Come, Ciel, please stay close. I know we have the paw, but that isn't going to stop everyone... A symbol can be ignored… Fear… is quicker than obedience, my Mother said."
Ciel acknowledged his warning with a solemn nod… her sharp elven features set in a mask of calm vigilance. She said no more, her silence a testament to the sad truth of his words. They had both learned that lesson in blood before.
Their first steps onto the packed earth of the main lane were like stepping onto a stage… The gentle sounds of the village, the creak of the waterwheel, a distant laugh stuttered before dying. A barrage of eyes, hard with suspicion and curiosity, locked onto the… from doorways, windows, and the village well. Work worn hands instinctively reached for axes propped against woodpiles or the hilts of knives at belts... The air grew thick, charged with a tension Aamon knew all too well… the prelude to violence.
Then, the collective gaze fell upon the golden cat's paw amulet displayed openly on Aamon's chest… The Queen's decree… The reaching stopped, but the staring did not. The silence stretched, thick and uncomfortable.
It was Ciel who broke it, her voice low and steady beside him, a anchor in the uneasy sea of faces.
"Friend… Don't mind them. We are all that matters… we just walk."
Her words were not for the villagers, but for Aamon, a reassurance that they would move through this together. She squeezed his hand, in a grounding pressure, as they began to walk forward again in a slow, deliberate procession through the heart of the settlement.
Aamon's ruby eyes are wide with a profound and wary innocence scanned the bustling scene. His gaze darted from the armored figure of a northern mercenary… to the shimmering robes of a court mage haggling over spell components. He saw not just potential threats in the glint of every newly sharpened blade, but the overwhelming and chaotic energy of a place forever receiving outsiders. This was a world of transient alliances and loud boasts… a world he had been caged from his entire life. The promise of shelter here felt terrifyingly fragile, a dream that could shatter the moment someone decided a demon's pelt would make a finer trophy than the Queen's favor…
but, with Ciel's hand, Aamon kept walking, each step an act of courage… a gamble on a door that might already be held open by another.
As they walked, Aamon's gaze flickered from the crowded street to Ciel's blank, unreadable face… seeking a solace he couldn't find in the unfamiliar chaos. His search for comfort was his undoing; he didn't see the figure barreling through the crowd until it was too late.
A solid shoulder slammed into him, shoving him hard into Ciel's side.
"Ehh… move, demon." The voice was a low, dismissive growl.
Staggering, Aamon looked up into the fierce… scowling face of a girl not much older than him. Two proud silver wolf ears twitched atop her head in annoyance… and a huge… fluffy tail swished behind her with impatient energy. Her hands rested on the pommels of two well worn hand axes hanging from her hips, their polished blades glinting with a promise of violence... Her eyes are a sharp gold, raked over him with pure contempt before she gave one final, derisive scoff and turned. Her tail brushing past him as she shouldered her way toward the doors of the nearby adventurer's guild.
Aamon stumbled back a step, more from the shock of the impact than the force itself... He watched the swish of the girl's large, fluffy tail as she disappeared through the guild's heavy doors, the crowd seeming to part for her without a word…
He rubbed his arm absently but not in pain, in contemplation. The glower on her face, the growl in her voice… it was a language he was fluent in, the dialect of hatred and fear. Beneath that something else had registered, something that made his head tilt in innocent curiosity.
Aamon turned to Ciel, his previous tension melting into a look of pure, analytical wonder. A genuine, unburdened smile touched his lips… a stark and bewildering contrast to the hostile stares still drilling into them from the periphery of the street.
"She wasn't very nice… But she did smell good. Like that same flower smell you have, Ciel… Exactly the same. What is that?"
Aamon mused, his voice carrying a note of clinical observation… as if commenting on the weather. His ruby eyes, now bright with discovery, locked onto Ciel's.
Ciel's blank mask, her shield against the world faltered for a microsecond. A flicker of something unreadable… surprise? unease? perhaps a deep and weary sadness? passed behind her eyes before the shutters came down again. She curled her hand more tightly inward against Aamon's, a subtle… protective gesture. Her own senses were sharp, as they parsed the world for threat and trajectory, for the scent of iron and ozone. She did not perceive the world in the same layered, intimate tapestry of scent that Aamon did.
"Ciel doesn't know what the smell is, maybe it's because… friend is a demon."
Ciel said, her voice low and even… a deliberate attempt to steer him away from the precipice of this particular truth. It was a truth too dangerous, too volatile for a world that saw him only as a monster. This was a weak deflection, and she knew it… it was the only shield she could offer him in the middle of the street.
But Aamon, in his profound innocence, just simply accepted the answer with a slow nod, filing it away as another strange, inexplicable fact of this strange, surface world. His curiosity, however, was now a hooked fish… pulling him inexorably toward its source. He didn't stay still too long. Tugging gently on Ciel's hand, as he walked with a new, determined purpose toward the imposing doors of the adventurer's guild where the wolf-girl had vanished.
The transition from the bright, open air of the street to the cavernous… shadow dappled interior of the guild was like stepping into a different realm... The air was thick with the smell of stale ale, roasted meat, oiled leather… and the sweat of a hundred different races. It was a symphony of life, loud and boisterous… until they entered.
It was a silencing spell made of flesh and fear. The roar of conversation, the clatter of tankards, and the booming laugh of a minotaur in the corner… it all died… severed at the source. It wasn't the gradual hush of a room growing quiet; it was the sudden, deafening silence of dropped bodies. Every head turned… Every eye… from the grizzled veteran sharpening a dagger to the fresh faced recruit clutching a staff. All fixed upon the demon and the abyssal elf in their doorway.
The guild was a huge, beautiful building, a testament to the wealth and traffic Mavis enjoyed. Vaulted wooden beams arched high overhead, from which hung banners of fallen monsters and legendary parties... The walls were dominated by massive boards, each one a mosaic of parchment… quests of every rank, from simple rat clearings in a cellar to maps leading to dungeons, their edges fluttering slightly in the tense… still air.
In the heart of the silence, behind a long, polished mahogany counter that served as the only barrier between order and chaos… a receptionist was the first to speak. She was an elegant demihuman with rounded squirrel ears and eyes that had seen too much to be easily shocked. She did not gasp or reach for a weapon... Instead, she placed her hands flat on the counter, a picture of professional calm… though her knuckles were white.
"Welcome to the Mavis Adventurer's Guild,"
she said, her voice cutting cleanly through the palpable tension. It was neither warm nor hostile, but meticulously, neutral... Her gaze was fixed on the golden cat's paw on Aamon's chest, then lifted to meet Ciel's eyes.
"How may we… assist you?"
"Oh, me and my friend here just followed a girl here."
Aamon's voice, bright and utterly devoid of any deceit, rang out in the cavernous silence. He paid no mind to the dozens of hardened adventurers whose hands were now inching toward their weapons. His attention was solely on the receptionist, a cheerful, inquisitive smile on his face.
"She had wolf ears and a big, fluffy tail... It looks really soft."
He said this while giving a little wag of his own. A gesture of harmless curiosity that was met with a fresh wave of tension... He peered around the room, his ruby eyes scanning the crowd of rough faced adventurers… but the wolf-girl was nowhere to be found. It was as if the bustling crowd had simply absorbed her the moment she passed the threshold.
The receptionist's professional calm remained, though a flicker of incredulity passed through her eyes.
"We don't know exactly who you are speaking of."
she said, her voice carefully measured. She slowly walked around the edge of her desk… not as a threat, but to better appraise the two unprecedented individuals before her.
"I would normally ask if you two have an adventuring card… but you're a demon and she's an abyssal elf."
There was no cruelty in her tone, only the stark, logistical truth of their situation… Their very existence was a complication her forms weren't designed to handle.
Ciel stepped forward, her posture straight… her voice cutting through the guild's thick air with a cool, unwavering clarity.
"Can Ciel and friend get a card? We are not bad… the queen's paw says so."
She gestured to the pendent on Aamon's chest, presenting it as their sole, she hoped sufficient, credential. Aamon looked down at Ciel, a question forming on his lips. He was momentarily distracted from his search for the wolf-girl... before he could speak, a new voice erupted from the side of the hall, deep and trembling with a terror so profound it was almost palpable...
"A…ab…abyss?..."
The word was a choked whisper… yet it carried through the silent hall. All eyes snapped toward the source: an older dwarf, his beard intricately braided with rings of office that marked him as the Guildmaster… His face, once ruddy and strong… was now ashen. His powerful, calloused hands which had doubtless felled giants, were shaking violently where they gripped the edge of a heavy oak table.
"Abyss! Why do you have abyss? WHAT KIND OF MONSTER ARE YOU!!" he roared, the fear in his voice twisting into raw, unadulterated horror.
A young scout near him, confused, placed a steadying hand on the dwarf's arm.
"Guildmaster? What's wrong? Why are you shaking? Why are you speaking the name of that witch?"
The Guildmaster didn't answer. He couldn't tear his wide, terror stricken eyes away from Aamon... He wasn't looking at the demon's face or his ruby eyes… He was staring, fixated, at Aamon's fingers. Specifically, at the rings adorning them... They were crafted of a strange, polished ivory like bone.
To Aamon, they were precious mementos… the last physical pieces of the good, loving mother he had known and lost. Him and his innocence, the rings were so she could always hold his hand. But to the Guildmaster… to any soul who had lived through the reign of the Succubus of the abyss, those rings were the unmistakable… horrifying remnants of the goddess of suffering herself. They were the relics of Abyss. And this smiling, innocent eyed demon was wearing them.
"Who are you?"
The guildmaster asks… He finally released his white knuckled grip on the table, the wood groaning in relief. With slow and deliberate steps that echoed in the profound silence, he closed the distance between himself and the demon… his eyes never leaving the bone rings.
"I am Aamonith… but you can just call me Aamon. My mother said I should let people call me that. She said it sounds more knightly anyways."
Aamon delivered the line with a touch of pride, as if sharing a precious piece of advice from a beloved parent. The blood drained from the Guildmaster's face, leaving his beard a stark contrast against suddenly pale skin… His mind, a fortress of hardened experience, rejected the information. It was impossible… A lie… A trick... A cruel… twisted jest from the pits of hell itself.
Mother.
The word echoed in the cavernous silence of his own mind, louder than any shout. Her child? Succubus Of The Abyss? The Queen of Suffering... The Devourer of Hope… She was a force of nature, an epoch of pain... a being so utterly devoid of the concept of love or creation that the idea of her mothering anything was the most blasphemous… universe breaking concept he had ever encountered.
Yet… the rings. They were real. He had seen their like before, long ago. It carried the same weight, the same ancient… abyssal resonance.
His eyes, wide with a horror that was now laced with a terrifying, dawning comprehension scanned Aamon's face anew. He was looking for her in the lines of his jaw, or the set of his eyes, the curve of his smile… he found only an unsettling innocence. The boy wasn't lying, The truth was there… in the soft, ruby eyes that held no memory of conquest, only a desire for approval. This was no invading warlord. This was…
…a son.
The realization tilted the world on its axis. Every story, every song of warning, every history text… they were all wrong. They were all incomplete. The most feared being across a dozen realms had a secret… That secret was now standing in his guild, smiling nervously, waiting to be told he could be a knight.
The Guildmaster's military bearing reasserted itself… a desperate grip on procedure in the face of existential chaos. He had to contain this. He had to understand. Now… He turned his head, his voice a hoarse croak that barely carried.
"Olive… bring these two to my office."
The command was no longer just about protocol; it was an urgent necessity for damage control on a cosmic scale.
Then, without another word he turned on his heel and strode away… his steps heavy with the weight of a truth that could start wars or end them. He needed the solidity of his desk, the four walls of his office, to try and process the impossible.
Aamon blinked, slightly confused by the sudden departure. He looked down at Ciel, his expression a silent question. She gave a minute, almost imperceptible nod... This was a path they had to walk. Reassured, Aamon turned his attention to the receptionist, Olive, who approached them… her squirrel tail puffed out with anxiety.
"Right this way."
she murmured, her voice thin, and gestured for them to follow, leading them toward the door that had just swallowed the shaken dwarf…
The Guildmaster's office was a cavernous hall of wood, stone, and memory… a private fortress within the guild itself. Aamon's ruby eyes went wide with wonder, his head craning back to take in the vaulted ceiling from which hung banners of forgotten campaigns. The scale of it was immense… speaking of a power and history that dwarfed the bustling room outside. Aamon's gaze swept over the rich tapestries, the heavy bookshelves groaning with ledgers and trophies… the three separate, plush couches arranged before a desk the size of a small boat.
"Wow."
Aamon breathed, the sound barely a whisper. Forgetting formality in his awe, he instantly tugged Ciel toward the largest… most plushest couch, sinking into its deep cushions with a soft sigh of pleasure.
Ciel… ever vigilant, allowed herself to be pulled down beside him… but her posture remained rigid. Her sharp eyes were not on the opulence but on the exits… the shadows, the potential threats. She leaned closer to him, her voice a low and urgent whisper meant for his ears alone.
"Friend… Don't forget manners. Betty said we should always be respectful, especially in the homes of powerful people."
Aamon tilted his head at her words. His massive, bat like wings, which had been half unfurled in his excitement, gave a slight… reflexive flap before he consciously settled them against his back… the leathery membrane rustling softly. He straightened up on the couch, trying to emulate a posture he imagined was knightly and polite. With careful… deliberate fingers, he reached up and fixed the dragon pendant with the Queen's golden paw where it rested on his shoulder.
"Yes, friend. I'll be on my best behavior."
Aamon said, his voice a solemn promise… He offered her a smile, a quick, bright thing that was soon swallowed by his renewed curiosity.
His attention drifted from her to the walls, which were a gallery of a long and violent life... There were maps of treacherous dungeons, mounted claws of monstrous beasts… paintings of stern faced dwarves in masterwork armor.,. But one painting, larger and more prominently placed than all the others, dominated the wall behind the Guildmaster's colossal desk.
It was a group portrait of twelve figures… rendered with such skill they seemed ready to step from the canvas. Eleven of them were maids, each beautiful and deadly in their own right… their uniforms crisp, their postures ramrod straight… their eyes holding a cold, professional efficiency that promised swift and silent violence. They were arranged in a semi-circle, not as background figures, but as a guard of honor.
In the center, towering over them all, was a man.
He was a giant encased in armor of blackened steel, the surface scarred and pitted from countless battles. A massive, grievous crack ran diagonally across the breastplate… a testament to a blow that should have been fatal. From his immense pauldrons, cruel industrial spikes thrust outward, designed to break weapons and shatter bones. It was the helmet that drew the eye and held it. It was one that resembled a demon… meant to intimidate and obscure. it was broken. A piece was missing from the right eye, a jagged shard torn away to reveal not flesh, but the faintest glimpse of a shadowed, impossible face within. The portrait didn't depict a hero; it depicted a force of nature... A calamity in steel...
Aamon stared, mesmerized and utterly uncomprehending of the sheer terror the image was meant to convey… He opened his mouth, a question about the tall man with the broken mask forming on his lips.
"That."
the Guildmaster said, his voice having found a firmer footing… now layered with a gruff, undeniable pride that was a stark contrast to his earlier terror,
"is Atom the Lord of Mayhem. We had the… privilege of hosting him at our guild for a single season, fifty years ago."
The word 'hosting' sounded inadequate, as if they had briefly sheltered a hurricane... Aamon, intrigued, leaned forward.
"Oh, so long ago. Is he still around?"
"Of course he is still around! Nothing in this world or any other can stop Atom Lord Of Mayhem. To even suggest it is folly."
The Guildmaster said, as if stating that the sun still rose. a low… certain chuckle rumbling in his chest as he settled behind his massive desk. The mere mention of the name seemed to have steadied him… grounding him in a legend he understood far better than the bewildering reality of Aamon.
His eyes grew distant, looking at the painting but seeing a memory.
"That mask he wears is no simple helmet."
the Guildmaster said, his voice dropping to a reverent hush.
"He pried it from the cold, dead face of the Devil of War himself after a clash that shook the realms... It is the fanged Oni mask of a slain god… and it is not merely broken. They say it was Atom himself who shattered it, driving the final killing blow through the visage of his divine foe. The crack you see is not a mark of weakness, but the permanent scar of his victory… a testament that he was strong enough to break a god's own symbol."
He let that sink in… the implication hanging in the air: a blow that could slay a dragon only managed to scar his armor.
"They say when the battle-fury is upon him, you can see the glow of his gaze through that broken shard… a light that promises pure, unending violence."
The Guildmaster gestured a thick hand toward the eleven maids in the portrait.
"And those are not just any servants... They are his maids… his battle maidens, his personal retinue. Each one a master of a killing art, each chosen by him personally. They don't follow him out of loyalty. They follow him because he is the apex. The final word in any conflict… He is less a man and more a force of nature… A walking cataclysm."
He finally tore his gaze from the painting, looking at Aamon as measuring him against the impossible standard of the portrait.
"Once… during a siege he grew tired of the enemy's walls. He didn't besiege them… He simply walked through them. Left a man shaped hole in three feet of solid stone and killed their leader before the dust had even settled."
The old dwarf shook his head.
"Stopping him was never a possibility. The world simply learns to get out of his way."
Aamon looked at the Guildmaster, with an expression of pure… unguarded wonder. He was astonished by the tale of Atom, Lord Of Mayhem, trying to reconcile the legend of a god-slayer with the dwarf's earlier fear.
They spoke for some time, Aamon playing his innocence perfectly. The guildmaster was relaxed, and Ciel was observant… But, a question hung in the air… like a corpse on the polished floor. Aamon spoke up, stopping the conversation cold…
"So, what exactly made you scared earlier? Why are you also afraid of my mother?"
Aamon's voice soft and curious, the Guildmaster's proud demeanor shattered… The color drained from his face once more, the mighty dwarf seemed to shrink in his chair. He looked at the bone rings on Aamon's fingers not with horror now, but with a profound, soul deep… grief.
"Becuase, I met Abyss once."
the Guildmaster said with gravelly tremor, stripped of all its former strength. He wasn't looking at Aamon anymore; he was staring into the middle distance… watching a ghost.
"Over a hundred and twenty years ago. I was not always a guildmaster. I was a soldier… young and foolish, stationed at a garrison on the edge of the Woods."
He took a slow… shaky breath, the memory a physical weight on his chest.
"She didn't come with an army... She came alone… A shadow that blotted out the sun. Our captain, a brave man named Borin… your Mother… she stepped forward to challenge her. He raised his shield, and shouted a prayer to the forge-god."
The dwarf's hands clenched into fists on the desk.
"She did not even look at him. She simply flicked her wrist, and an invisible force lifted him into the air. He hung there, suspended by her will alone."
The Guildmaster's voice dropped to a shattered whisper.
"She used no magic. No weapon. She simply... unmade him. It was not a sound of battle, but of anatomy giving up its secrets… a wet, quiet coming apart."
He finally looked at Aamon, his eyes swimming with a pain that had not faded in a century.
"Then she turned. Her eyes… they were not eyes. They were voids, and they found the rest of us."
"She crossed the courtyard without moving her feet…, just a whisper of darkness, and then she was before me. Her hand was cold as a tombstone when grabbed my breastplate and lifted me until my feet dangled. She brought my face close to hers. I could smell nothing... No breath... Just… absence."
His next words were a choked, perfect mimicry… of the voice a nightmare seared into his mind.
"'You reek of fear… little iron-maker,' she said, her voice the sound of grinding bones. 'All you do is hide behind a metal shell. I see no use for you alive.'"
A single tear traced a path through the dust on the Guildmaster's cheek.
"She didn't say anything past that. She didn't need to… She just opened her hand. I fell, and the rubble of my own fortification buried me. I was the only one she did not kill outright. She left me there to listen to the silence she had made."
He looked at his own hands, the hands of a survivor… A reminder…
The Guildmaster's words hung in the air like smoke after a cannon blast. A full… overstretched minute passed, the weight of the story pressing down on them all... Finally, Aamon stood up. He wasn't sure why a deep, aching hurt bloomed in his chest… a visceral pain as if he himself were responsible for the horror he'd just heard.
The Guildmaster watched him, his own grief and trauma etched into the lines of his face… He saw the genuine distress in the demon's posture… his hardened heart cracked just enough for a sliver of clarity.
"Look at me, boy."
he said, his voice rough but no longer accusatory. He waited until Aamon's pained ruby eyes met his.
"You don't have her eyes. I stared into the voids that damned generations. Yours are… different… You aren't evil. Not like her."
"Sorry…"
Aamon whispered, the word was fragile… He struggled with the storm of confusion inside him.
"It's just… you know… my mother was never cruel to me. She sang to me. She held me when I had nightmares."
His voice broke as the two irreconcilable images of his mother… the loving comfort and the merciless tyrant, collided in his mind.
"I don't like hearing she is bad."
He reached for Ciel's hand, needing her anchor, He let himself be pulled back down onto the couch. His gaze lifted to the imposing painting on the wall… to the fearsome visage of The Lord Of Mayhem. His eyes didn't see the fanged Oni mask or the god-slayer's might. Instead… he saw a reflection of his own pain… In the dark hollow of the broken mask, his mind superimposed another image: his mother's face in her final moments… her own dark eyes not filled with malice, but with a bottomless sorrow and a lifetime of unspoken regret… The two tragedies, separated by decades, felt tragically connected in that moment, and Aamon could only sit and grieve for a past he never knew and a mother he never truly understood…