Chasing Godhood (Blueslime)

[BlueSlime]

Re: Chasing Godhood (Blueslime)

Nala reserved her judgment on the archangel and his designs in this matter. It may be that all he said was true, to a point and certainly she would put his word over a demon's, given her personal history; however she couldn't help but feel that she was somehow aiding the angel beyond what he said.

Nevertheless, she had come back to Ch'Hiesol to do this: to unleash the power of Janis from its dormancy, and to claim what control she may of the awesome, nigh unfathomable and eldritch might of the god's grave.

It would begin, she knew, with an act of recognition.

She gazed deeply into the tree, beyond its material bark and underlying sap, and indeed beyond the buzzing aura of magic that it possessed. These were incidental things, and not a reflection of what she truly sought to understand - the immense network of life and nature. Raw, yet ordered chaos in arcane form, spreading out from the tree as supernatural roots, underpinning the biosystem for miles and miles around her. She sensed where it melded with the ley line, and would connect with the nodes of power around Donevrion. It was a river that fed the world. One of several, but a major one. And she was here to drink it.

She knew that her present body could no more contain the power of Janis than a teapot could hold the contents of a sea. What the angel had said was true - her body was insufficient and there would be pain involved in accommodating to the power she sought to claim. To accomplish this, she must discard her body and do so without losing possession of her spirit. What would happen to her after that was the matter of speculation, but she hazarded a guess that it might be similar to what had occurred when she was inside of Matthias' soul over two years ago.

She extended her arcane senses more, to examine each artery of power, noting the current of energy that pulled along like a slip stream within the life network of Janis. The network was vast, awe-inspiring, and worthy of reverence - as Kalevi and the other druids had done for far too long. The secret of what held it all together, to make it work when it shouldn't work, was a mystery that Nala felt, deep inside, would be the key to truly harnessing the full potential of this battery, and perhaps it would be the knowledge necessary to restore what she knowingly and willingly was about to break.

I must become a part of the network, she thought. The process of absorption will destroy me if I resist its pull entirely. I cannot fight against the current, but I can ride it, and swim across it. It is a labyrinth of life magic, but the consciousness inside of it is dead. I need to become that consciousness. I must not fear to take this step. This will be quick and hesitation will be my true death.

She knew that in touching this delicate balance, there would be no going back. Were she of a truly suicidal mindset, she might attempt to destroy Donevrion outright. But she was doing this to change and save this world, not to end it, and she would prove to all others and to herself that such was her destiny. Matthias had seen something in her. The other goddesses had seen it as well. To any being that threatened those she held in high regard, Nala would be a force to be reckoned with. She had that drive and desire.

The witch elf reached out her hand to the tree, saying a mental goodbye to that hand even as she did so. Her purple hued fingers hovered a hair's breadth from the tree bark.

"Everything dies. Everything changes. Everything begins anew."

She bound herself in her magic. Emerald and Amethyst energies howled about her in the vigorous swirling green ribbons and crackling sparks of violet, kicking her blue hair wildly above her head. She would need her most powerful aegis active when she moved to the tree, as soon magic and spirit would be all that she was.

She did not give in to thoughts of hope. She told herself that there would be something for her on the other side of this, and that was Nala's last thought as her fingers and her spirit made contact with the tree.

Her every thought in that first moment was to divert the channels of power away from herself so as to survive the initial sundering. She wove her spiritual link into the most obvious and stable nodes of Janis' power, tethering herself to it in a metaphysical manner similar to how Esmerala had shown her how to absorb spiritual power from a lover.

Everything the witch elf did now was with a firm, even fatalistic confidence. Once the torrent had begun and the pain assaulted her, she knew that she was already dead, and that the only alternative to oblivion was to push her consciousness through the next moment, and the next, and the next after that, letting the power of Janis crumble and destroy the land around her while her spirit sipped and supped of energy. The wild entropy that made up Nala's aegis was there not only to shift dangerous energy away from Nala's spiritual core, but also to change her physical body to conform to the influx of energy.

If it were necessary, Nala would destroy her physical self to maintain the connection and ride along with the current, but she would not do so until she was sure it was the only way forward.

So much wasted power slipped by her, and yet, she was confident that it could be - and would be reclaimed. And she swore that she would be the one to do it, no matter how long it would take.

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Chasing Godhood (Blueslime)

Spoiler

Nala: HP = 57, PP = 87, EP = 74/90, Status = Fine, Nature's Power (+78 Mind), Upkeep = doesn't really matter anymore

Energy crackled and hummed beneath her fingers, perhaps one of the last sensations that she would ever feel with those nerves, before Nala pressed her fingers against the worn bark. Down into that impossibly dense network she gazed, not with physical eyes but with her mind. Body, mind, spirit; the three were all linked, all part of the whole that made up who she was. To take in the power she needed to achieve her goals, all three would have to change in accordance. Her spirit would grow, taking in immense power that had once been a part of a goddess. Her mind would swell and change to accommodate it. Her body would burn around her, but with newfound power would be remade better than it ever could have been had she remained mortal... Assuming, of course, that she didn't destroy herself entirely.

All too soon, it would begin, the catastrophic surge of wild energies that would cascade into destruction unlike anything she had ever witnessed, much less wielded herself. First, however, she settled into the power she aimed to claim, find a spot where she could connect herself to that network and settling in.

The world screamed around her, the comforting pleasantness of the glade giving way to the dull haze of the spirit world, but it would only take seconds before she realized what she had just become a part of. The entire network formed from the tree, the shard of essence of Janis' shattered being, was made up of fragmented souls, their cores ruptured as they had been incorporated into her and time only causing them to fracture further after her death. Voices, maddened by centuries of this shattered state, whispered to her in a myriad of tongues, all unintelligible but issuing a never ending cacaphonic chorus. Tuning them out took a moment of effort, but when she did Nala found herself able to ignore them completely as she prepared to situate herself.

She might not be able to absorb the massive network into herself all at once, but she could tie a part of it to her soul to be gradually incorporated and take in portions of it. The more powerful she became, the more power she would be able to intake, and with her will sharpened to a razor's edge she was able to contain and direct the connections. However, as she started to draw power into herself, changing connections from the main network to lead to herself instead, the destructive cascade began. Supporting links she had missed snapped as she shifted portions of broken essence, and the tidal wave of destruction began. She felt death, the violent snap-back as the energies supporting life were suddenly withdrawn, but now was not the time to concern herself with it; She had a goal here, a purpose in claiming this power, and whatever the cost would not be denied.

Her spirit expanded naturally as she formed herself into part of that vast network, carefully claiming fragments of it even as it collapsed around her. The sensation was painful in a way, though certainly lacked any purely physical sensation, and the lesser portions of the network that she enveloped she absorbed much as she had the demon's soul she had claimed. It was much easier to take these weakened, broken spirits into herself, their memories faded and wills long destroyed, but even as she wove some into herself she felt others splintering apart into wild energies. Each soul she claimed added to her power, some more than others but each an intrinsic increase in metaphysical strength, but the thinner she stretched herself to weave those fragments into herself the more spiritual discomfort she felt... And the more she risked letting the stresses of what she was doing splinter herself completely.

The collapse of Janis' shard sped as she expanded, and Nala found herself forced to make a choice. She would not be able to claim all of it, but how ambitious she wished to be was still up to her. Breaking off the nearest section of the network, the one connected directly to Ch'Hiesol, would allow her to maintain and absorb it in relative safety and still offer a massive increase in her strength, though it would leave more than half of Janis' essence to be lost. Even that would be risky; if she missed even a single connection the power recoil could drag her down and destroy her with the rest of the shattering network. The more she claimed, the greater the risk, but the only other place where the number of connections thinned sufficiently that she might consider herself able to cut them all in time was deeper below, near the base of the mountain. There, many of the souls wove together in a great chord leading down into the roots of the world, feeding the ley line below. That chord was already fraying dangerously, but Nala could attempt to sever it halfway down and hope to claim even more of Janis' power. Doing so would require upmost concentration and that she carry an immense metaphysical wait until she could absorb it, no easy task by any means, and if she missed a line it would lead to her certain destruction.

Her body already burned painfully, not prepared to contain so much magical power all at once. It hadn't failed yet, but if she wished to maximize what she took of Janis it would undoubtedly be destroyed along with the glade, and if she went too long without a body it could leave her mind and spirit splintering much like Janis' had when Matthias had slain her. The delicate balance was tipping already, and Nala would have to choose quickly how much risk she was willing to take .

 

[BlueSlime]

Re: Chasing Godhood (Blueslime)

As the network of collected souls crumbled around her, Nala busied herself with connecting to and absorbing as much of it as she could by merging herself, mind body and spirit, with its currents of power.

She knew that she was already taking the ultimate risk in this action, that everything she did from here on out was an all or nothing prospect. This close to absolute destruction and the sundering of her soul - she had never felt more alive. The feeling was an adrenaline rush, and it sang within her as a testament to the arcane energies which empowered her - the twin whorls of life and entropy; a balance between the natural finite order and unending chaos.

Propelled by such properties, Nala's inevitable choice between breaking off a piece of the network and remaining here, at Ch'Hiesol, or sending her spirit down into the depths of the earth, to break off a greater part of Janis' remaining power and touch herself to the ley line that would connect her with the rest of the world was a simple one. Her life had been defined by dangerous choices, by tempting fate without fear, and either way, her mortal coil would end with a similarly brazen act.

It is only dangerous if I fail. I see where I must go. I know what I must do.

Nala fixed her spiritual sight on the place deep below, where she could sever the fraying cord within the heart of the mountain and absorb the power of Janis while flirting with the edge of oblivion. Wasting no more time, she traveled down the 'beanstalk' of the crumbling network, moving deeper and deeper. She moved quickly, her senses on fire, targeting the thin collection of souls where she could snap Janis' decaying power and attach herself, but if she didn't do this soon, and if she couldn't handle the weight of all that energy, she would die. The latter problem was something she would worry about later, for now, she concentrated on the first, which was speed.

She must make it. She had to make it. Lives depended on this. The future depended on this. Not hers alone, she told herself - everyone's future. She felt like she was soaring, diving like a bird of prey, at breakneck speed towards her goal. Her metaphysical form was stretched thin and it hurt, but she could handle that pain for now.

Once she neared her destination, she did her best to slow down, and use her energy to start breaking apart the souls at distance, to release the rest of Janis down into the ley line, timing things so that by the time she arrived at the break it was hanging by only a tether. She would work to attach herself quickly, binding her spirit to the cord of power and only once she was secure did she cut the final souls and take on the entirety of the remaining Janis network on top of herself.

In that moment, she would come to understand if she had taken too much, or if she might somehow be able to ride out and withstand the great burden that was Janis' remaining strength. And if it did seem too much, if it did crush her, she would absorb as much as she could, as fast as she could, even as the weight drove her down into the earth. If she could take it into herself, she would reduce the weight and strengthen herself to possibly withstand the pressure just enough. It might not do any good, but it would be worth a shot at that point.

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Chasing Godhood (Blueslime)

Spoiler

Nala: Fine... Bodyless though.

Ambition had led to figures of greatness rising and to catastrophic fall in equal measure before, and Nala was fearless in seeking the former. The cascade of obliteration continued to build beneath her as she sought to stabilize a greater portion of the godly essence protected at Ch'Hiesol, broken souls shattering apart and lines of energy snapping around her even as she sought to dive deeper, to touch a portion of the core of power feeding into the ley line running deep below. She was vaguely aware of the danger to her physical frame, of the ground beginning to quake as the power boiling around her began to produce detectable physical phenomena, but such was at most a distant concern.

Deeper she went, to try and claim a portion of that chord of immeasurable power, but catastrophe struck exactly then. A rent formed in that line just as she drew near, the core of power unraveling just as she sought to touch it, and it sent a cataclysmic reaction spiraling out from it. Every connection to it broke, and every connection to those connections broke in turn in a rising tide of explosive energy. A line of shattering spirits ripped up towards the surface, and Nala couldn't stem it in time. Metaphysical pain turned to burning agony as the lance of power tore up through the portion of Janis that she had already laid claim to, shattering a sizable chunk of that mass and causing it to explode in a violent burst of raw magic. Her own soul was not spared the aftershock of that split, the tiny fragile core of her being cracking under the duress caused by the most minor quakes running through the entity she was attempting to claim.

The broken shard of Janis fell away, ripping away any portions of Nala she attempted to use to hold it, and once parted it simply exploded. She was vaguely aware of the physical ramifications of that, of the side of Ch'Hiesol exploding, of the plateau tilting as the temple below it was annihilated. The glade burned, ancient flowers and ferns igniting suddenly as the energies burned off in the form of heat. Her own body burned too, soft flesh crisping, hair igniting, and blood boiling, but the physical pain was distant and brief compared to the subjective eternity of spiritual pain that she was forced to fight through. Her soul's cracks widened as her stretched essence tried to hold the increasingly splintering shard of Janis, the crumbling power pulling the very fabric of her being increasingly taut. There was no stopping this now, however, and as her body died there came a note of finality to her increasingly desperate endeavor.

There would be no rescue from this if she failed, not for her at least. The power she had sought to claim would be lost, forever, and it would be of no use to anyone. The people she cared about would be left to fend for themselves in an increasingly hostile world, and she would have no knowledge of their ultimate fate... Because she, Nala, would no longer exist. If she failed here, there would be no one able to rescue her. Her soul would be obliterated, her essence scattered and her mind left fragmented and destroyed, and not even one as powerful and resourceful as Matthias or Michael might piece her back together again. Everything that she had ever been and everything that she might have become would be lost in a cataclysm that took the place of her birth and the last fragment of an ancient goddess with it.

And with that thought in mind, Nala was made to hold to what she could. She clung to every scrap of power she could hold, took in what she could so that she could claim and protect more. Some portions she couldn't help but lose, some she had to cast away lest a second shock destroy her completely, but she was not without victories. Though she had failed to take a portion of the ley line, she did claim portions of Janis that its unraveling sent hurtling away, catching them like a frog might catch flies while doing what she could to maintain and absorb the largest portion she had already claimed. A cobbled together mass of power it might be, but the more she took the more powerful she would become in the end, and the more of it she made truly a part of herself the less the stresses placed upon her left her in agony.

Hours passed in the physical realm, but time was not so simple in the spirit realm, and Nala spent what felt like days at her task, gobbling up as much as she could while the shard of Janis burned beneath her. By the end of it, she hadn't even managed to cobble together a full third of even what she had been able to sense, but what she had claimed still dwarfed what she had been in the same sense that the gods and archangels - or perhaps demon kings - had dwarfed her before. Once the cataclysm itself was over, she had a time to digest, to spread herself among the broken shards and make of them a whole. It wouldn't be as simple a task as it might have sounded, forming her own network of connections of power to maintain a hold on the power she had gained, and even when those portions she had claimed were rendered usable they would be unstable for a time.

Now, however, she found herself experiencing so much more than she had ever imagined. The spirit realm's mysteries were laid bare, an entire ecosystem unlike the one in the mortal realm retaking lost ground. Everything on Donevrion had a spirit, and ultimately everything died, and each became a daemon, if even for the tiniest moments before being absorbed by something larger. Nala herself was given a wide berth, the tiny spirits easy prey with the most minor efforts but hardly worth the effort needed to claim them. The flow of time itself was like a hose now, a line she could squeeze shut or let flow freely. The very core of her being expanded, and with her soul's growth came the growth of her mind, a greater understanding of the fundamental laws of reality... How they could be bent, or even broken. More experimentation would show her more, but even now she would have been able to accomplish things that no mortal sorcerer could have imagined with ease.

And, when she was ready... She could look upon the physical world again, now a true daemon, of incredible power. Ch'Hiesol was destroyed, and all the lands around it laid waste by an aura of death and the explosion that she had inadvertently caused when going for a bigger bite. The plateau that had once contained the sacred garden had half collapsed, its surface scorched bare. The ashes of her old body mingled with those left from the sacred tree itself. The intricacies of life were laid bare to her as well, no particle or organism too small to escape her newly enhanced perception, and the power to shape matter as she willed was no longer beyond her. If she wished, she could recreate her body, appearing just as she had before but with the improvements needed to optimize her physical form... Or she could change whatever she wished, her imagination now the only limit to how she shaped her manifestation. The archangel hovered above, gliding and waiting but still maintaining a respectful distance, as if awaiting Nala's return from apparent destruction.

 

[BlueSlime]

Re: Chasing Godhood (Blueslime)

Disaster and catastrophe fell upon Nala like hammer blows as the fraying cords of power from which she was siphoning snapped like a whipcord. The resulting feedback seared through her soul in an agony unlike anything she had felt before, easily topping the relatively paltry pain of her first brush with death two years ago, when she'd been shot through the heart.

Ch'Hiesol was crumbling and aflame, as was her body, now dying physically and being left behind in the wake of the crumbling shards of souls. What remained to Nala's consciousness and her soul was the task of avoiding obliteration and absorbing whatever power she could. She had no time to think or worry or regret. She was for all intents and purposes now a dead thing, and would return to the world through no other way than by absorbing what power remained.

She understood the finality of her actions. No one could save her but herself, and she felt a relief in knowing that at least. All her spiritual motions became the subject of her absolute focus. The pain was a horrible but welcome reminder that she still existed and so she sought to work through it. For minutes that felt like hours, which in turn felt like days. Time fell away into a meaningless concept as she drew the souls into her, refashioning everything into a new pattern. It would fall depressingly short of what Janis had been, but Janis had been a goddess for a long time, with an age of worshipers who had been brought into her bosom in the afterlife. Nala would be happy now to remain in the world with the power that she had gained and the hope that she could put such gifts to good and active use.

Her perception of reality had already changed, gazing as she now did upon the greater mysteries of the cosmos. Matter and energy could be shaped, time and space reformed and held back and twisted upon themselves. She toyed with these concepts, taking her first tentative steps as a daemon in slowing down the time bubble in which she now existed. She concentrated on the expansion of her soul and the spiritual energies that she could now command and tested her ability to affect the world around her.

Her consciousness spread in four cardinal directions to the far edge of the death zone she had created in breaking down the Janis tree. At the edge where life still existed and came up against the entropic field, she sped up time, growing seeds of life and replacing the death she had wrought, shoving the energies of entropy aside. Blades of grass and jungle moss grew in a swirling pattern, four paths of green running back towards the center of Ch'Hiesol. Bringing the paths together at the base of where the Janis tree had been, Nala used her energies to create a tiny sapling of a new tree, with dark bark that would resist and absorb the entropic energies still surrounding the area.

And as this sapling grew to ankle's height, Nala reformed her own body, creating herself anew in her original image. She garbed her body in an elegant yet still revealing green dress, with moss and bramble shoulder guards. A dark wood staff formed in her hands, and she turned to gaze up at Michael as he descended to speak with her.

"It will take time to rebuild what Janis wrought," Nala said to the archangel. "But I will do so nonetheless. So then. What have you to say? Now that I am a daemon."

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Chasing Godhood (Blueslime)

Spoiler

Nala: Fine... Extra fine. :3

"Indeed," Michael replied as he swept down and landed upon the partial regrowth Nala had created. The growth did not die beneath his feet, but seemed to flourish as he gently padded through the soft mosses and still sparse grasses. She would feel the currents of energy flowing around him, the world's natural essences responding to his presence. Rather than adding to the desolation she had just beaten back, however, the angel's presence seemed to radiate serenity, enhancing the flow of life-giving energies that she had created.

"I am glad to see that you have returned. Not all who become daemons opt to do so... And not all are able. Not to say that I am surprised," Michael said as he strode toward her, a pleasant and calm smile on his face. Expanded though her perceptions might be, Nala was still inexperienced in her new form, and where before he had simply dwarfed her like an elephant to an ant, now she could actually perceive the bounds of the archangel's power. She could not yet tell exactly how he measured up, but at a guess she would say that she was now the more powerful of the two.

"Anyway... First things first, and probably the least interesting. You can probably imagine that the world existing alongside the physical one is not in the most ordered state right now. Since the old order was destroyed, the spirit realm has been in chaos, and for longer than my kind have existed that chaos has bled over into the physical reality that we straddle, and that you were limited to up until now. As you can imagine, that has taken a great deal of work to keep contained. Old gods awakening, ancient dragons claiming dominion, even beings from outside our reality entirely... Then the demons and the aliens... The gods were, for all their faults, the protectors of a semblance of order on Donevrion, and with them gone for the large part... Well, I believe that that is why my kind were originally created.

"That, however, is unimportant right now. What you need to know now is that you are becoming a part of a larger community, and a very disparate one. It is within all of our interests to ward off the outside threats and establish a better order than existed before, one in which life can flourish without fear of things that natural creatures - sentient or otherwise - cannot stand against. As you might imagine, some are more willing to participate than others. You have met Matthias, and he is... Let us say, dispassionate about picking up the slack leftover from the aftermath of his actions a few millennia ago. Now, however, the other gods - now your peers - who are returning from hiding or bondage are working alongside us toward our common goals. Dragons have signed on, some of whom are less belligerent than the reputation of their kind would suggest, and the faerie courts have been the guardians of this world since before even the gods.

"Unfortunately, even with the added help, the instability caused by the invasion two years ago has been... Problematic. It has allowed things that would normally be dealt with quickly go uncontested, and as you have found out, problems that may seem small at first have a tendency to grow if left unchecked. The demons building at what once was Celesis need to be dealt with, quickly. Not that we needed further motivation, but more than your home are in jeopardy now."

 

[BlueSlime]

Re: Chasing Godhood (Blueslime)

As the angel descended from on high to land gracefully among the small flow of life she had forced into the death field, the newly formed Nala was getting reacquainted with her physical form. It was, putting it mildly, different than she had expected. Being now a daemon, she was acutely aware of her spiritual presence being packed down, condensed, and wrapped into the tidy little package that was the night elf body she had created for herself.

Whereas her fundamental existence had hitherto been a relative constant - her muscle, bone, blood and flesh making up a known quantity of matter - she was now truly a thing that existed on an awareness of dimensions that defied the limits of this body. True she might be a night elf in form, but she might just as easily be represented as a song or a mathematical formula or a lover's sigh lost among a howling gale.

Her mortal mind instinctively wanted to reject this as madness, but her spirit was forced to accept and adapt to it as a matter of fact, leaving the young godling with a profound sense of apprehension. Here now was a new frontier to explore: a wilderness fraught with peril and she as naked and as unprepared as she had been when first banished into the jungle from Ch'Hiesol. Would Kalevi be proved right after all? Only time would tell. Nala would have all of an eternity to continue to prove her wrong. But oh, what a burdensome task it might be.

---

"Becoming a daemon is a novel experience to say the least. What I just did was not pleasant; neither physically, mentally, spiritually - or even morally. I killed a beautiful gravestone, and none like it shall ever be again. But a gravestone it was, and such will do the living of Donevrion no favors."

She listened to Michael continue to speak. His story was a simple one, to her mind. The old gods had fallen, Matthias had left the power vacuum an empty void, and without that in place, chaos and entropy had crept in. Having had a glimpse into the history of the Godslayer from within, it filled Nala with an immense sense of pity, for the world had been denied a proper guardian and instead suffered a bitter irony. Matthias had become what he was because of the injustice of the gods, and yet their absence too was an injustice. One just as bad as the other.

"Matthias is a passionate being when he wants to be," Nala said with a demur sideways glance. "But most of his passion was spent when he achieved his catharsis. What is a man to do after that? And for such a powerful daemon, he's still a man in so many ways - not the least of which is that he doesn't clean up the mess he made. Still, I forgive him for it. He's more than made it up to me."

She let her thoughts drift for a moment, recalling her journey through death and a daemon's soul, through her resurrection, and through the unforgettable power of the Godslayer as a lover. Yes, Matthias, for all his mistakes, had nothing owed to Nala. Let him burn the heavens again, for all she might care, so long as she might provoke a devilish grin from his lips and feel his hands grip her waist once more.

"So you want me to join up with the angels?" she asked Michael. "I'm definitely not your style, but I agree with what you're trying to do. This world needs protecting, and the demon king sitting in Celesis is going to pay for the pain he's caused."

She took a few languid steps in a circle around the angel, testing out her legs and the form she now wore.

"I will not excoriate all demons however. Despite how some of them have treated me, I believe they can exist peacefully alongside mortals, if they are removed from the power struggle they were born into. Not all of them can be redeemed for what they've done, but some can. And it will be for those to lead the way forward."

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Chasing Godhood (Blueslime)

Spoiler

Nala: No it's fine

"I imagine not, no!" The archangel replied with a slight burst of appreciative laughter. Once he was finished, Nala was able to say her piece on the matters he had brought up, and the handsome angel let an amused smile dance across his chiseled features. "That is certainly a way of thinking about it that I've not heard before... Appropriate though!"

"Not precisely," Michael replied after Nala's summary of his stated desires, "I think it would benefit everyone if we cooperated, yes, but I wouldn't want you to think you are beholden to us. There are just certain... Guidelines that we would prefer that you follow, is as simply as I can put it... Though, saying it like that, it does sound a bit coercive, doesn't it? I don't intend it as much, and I don't believe you will have much issue in following them anyway."

The archangel stood completely at ease, hands resting together behind his back and his spine straight. He followed her trek around him with only a slight tilt of his head before she left his peripheral vision, letting her stretch her legs as she pleased without staring at her. "That has yet to be seen concretely... But I agree that they at least deserve the opportunity. Unfortunately, the Amazon is a poor place for it, and the caliber of demon heading New Abaddon now is not the sort that will do well with the opportunity. Whether or not any of them are truly up to the task of creating peaceful coexistence... Well, I suppose we may yet see.

"Regardless, your stakes in this are more personal than ours, and I believe that you have a better chance of managing it without collateral damage. There are many mortal slaves in their holding, and many artifacts and works that I would prefer to see preserved left in Celesis. Demons are notoriously untrusting of my kind, and if we arrived in the numbers it would take to face them it would only spark battle immediately. You, however... I believe they would be more willing to entertain negotiation with. Unseating the demon king could be much easier if it was only he we had to deal with, wouldn't you agree?"

 

[BlueSlime]

Re: Chasing Godhood (Blueslime)

"Tell me your guidelines then, and I will let you know what I think of them," Nala said. She was curious as to what sort of suggestions the heavenly choir would have for a freshly minted daemon such as herself. The former night elf was aware that she was about to encounter a learning curve and she was assuming it would be a steep one.

"So it sounds like you would like me to go alone into Celesis. Even if I am now far more powerful than I once was, it still seems like that could end very badly. Did you have a plan in mind? Because one wrong step and the demon king could defeat me and consume the power I have gained - and that would cost the world dearly."

Although she recognized it as being an idea fraught with peril and pitfalls, Nala also felt that if what Esmerala had told her were true, then there would be demon lords waiting for their chance to dethrone their master. If she could arrange for enough chaos among the demon court, then Nala might have a shot at saving Celesis without provoking an all out war that would cost the mortal slaves their lives and souls, but it would certainly be dangerous.

Nala also wondered how well she might be able to disguise her new self from the demons in New Abaddon. Would they be able to sense what she was or could she perhaps infiltrate them by posing as something less than what she was currently?

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Chasing Godhood (Blueslime)

Spoiler

Nala: Gettin told what to do

Michael would turn to face her, still smiling pleasantly to deliver the rules that came with her new status; "Well, it all boils down to trying to... Limit the amount of influence you have over mortals. We wouldn't ask you to abandon the community you have helped create, not yet anyway, but... Well, it wouldn't exactly be difficult for you to take over a Badarian city, for instance, now would it? We allowed an immortal tyrant to retain power because we saw them start as a mortal once before, and don't intend to let that happen again. I wouldn't mean to suggest that you are the same caliber of person as the Lich King, of course, but when it comes to lives and souls we've found through experience that it's best to just apply the same limits to everyone. The influence of the immortal on the mortal must be as limited as possible if the two are to coexist, and any effect you are to have on mortalkind must naturally be indirect... Eventually. For now, you may do as you wish, and if protecting people who cannot protect themselves and ending the present demonic threat in Amazonia are your goals then you will certainly get no resistance from us. Working actively to stop other beings at your power level who threaten Donevrion, guiding those will inevitably end up worshiping you through visions and the occasional appearance, those sorts of thing are fine. You know Avedel already, I believe, and she is already taking up her old role as the manager of mortal souls. As she does, you will receive an influx of those who align with your temperament to retain and expand your power. The worshipers of Janis have gone to Sivicine for some time now, you will have to negotiate with her over that, but I think those who still pray to Venus will probably find you more agreeable than Matthias, who has been claiming them up until now."

Later, when the conversation turned to what Nala would do next, Michael lightly shook his head. "No no... I was actually going to leave that up to you. Sending you in alone without a plan would be rather foolish, I agree. Keeping the power of Janis out of demon hands is one of the many reasons I preferred to allow you to take it, I wouldn't so casually throw you to the wolves. Anything we could do to help, we would, but I am hoping that a more... Indirect manner of thinking would come up with a better plan than storming the city."

Though she was inexperienced with her present state still, Nala could feel ways in which she could change herself, or at least her outward spiritual self. Hiding her nature would be a gambit, one that might leave her in grave danger if it failed and she didn't realize as much in time, and at least at this initial stage she could not manage it with any reliability. Time would allow her to refine her skills, however, as she was now effectively using an entirely new portion of herself that she had before only barely tapped into. Time, and perhaps some time with those more knowledgeable than herself.

 

[BlueSlime]

Re: Chasing Godhood (Blueslime)

Nala crossed her arms, subconsciously a bit defensive at being lectured. The elven witch's track record had never been favorable to doing what she was told. The past two years, and especially the last few weeks had lent her some perspective however, enough so that she didn't dismiss what Michael had to say outright.

"So you don't want me hauling off and declaring myself the witch queen of the jungle, is that it?" Nala gave the archangel a crooked smile. "Just avenge the lost mortals I did know and protect the ones I'm close to now... in a mortal lifespan they'll die off and I'll be free of all mortal concerns, and fade into the background to do my supernatural duties... everything orderly and just so. And in the meantime, while I am so enthralled by my lingering mortal passions, I should dismantle a great threat to the natural order in a way that saves your choirs the trouble? I take it that's what you'd like?

"Well then be at ease, sweet Michael. For as nice as being a god-queen sounds, it would probably just end in boring people annoying me with their politics and I've no desire to be the very thing that I am fighting against. Mmm, no promises on not slipping into the beds of royalty however~."

She tittered to herself, feeling suddenly spritely and eager to frolick about the world. Her daliances in Ch'Hiesol with the druids, guardians and diplomats would be as nothing to what she'd be like among the world at large. So many lands and lovers awaited.

"I do know Avadel, yes. She is the caretaker of my first daughter, Primera. I have yet to meet Sivicine though. Ah, and Matthias... yes I should talk to him again too, if he were of a mood to do so. About Venus and other things. Mm, yes. If I were to want to locate them and the other daemons like myself, how should I go about it? Is there an easy way to summon ourselves to them?"

As the talk eventually turned to the matter of the demons in New Abaddon, Nala nodded to what Michael said. "I have a demon acquaintance who believes the demon lords can be manipulated into toppling their king. If such a solution exists, it would be ideal, although I think doing whatever it might take to speed that resolution along would be best. The mortal slaves suffering under the demon yoke could use immediate aid."

Three days had been traumatic enough for the people of Kyederon. How many more horrors would those caught in New Abaddon be facing? She needed to free those poor souls and let them heal through the pleasure and release and succor that she could offer them.

She would need to collect Violet before going anywhere else. She wasn't sure if she wanted to speak to her mother right now. Anything that would be said would end in yet another fight - and her mother certainly had every right to be angry with her. It would be better that way. Kalevi could be angry at Nala, and take solace in Obryd and that new kid of theirs. A new start, a new life, and nature was still going to be there. Nala and Sivicine and the rest of the supernaturals would see to that.

After collecting Violet, Nala would need to do two things. The first would be to find other daemons that she could talk to and ask for advice on how to utilize these newfound abilities. Once she'd done that, she'd return to Esmerala, and discuss how to start taking down the demon king from within his own ranks. She was certain that if she could be clever about using the power she'd absorbed from Janis, she could bring the demon courts to their knees.

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Chasing Godhood (Blueslime)

Spoiler

Nala: PLOTTING

"Well, when you put it that way.... Yes, that is just about the long and short of it. I could go into greater detail, but you seem to get the gist of things," Michael replied lightly, amusement dancing through his voice. He laughed aloud when she shrugged off the notion of engaging in mortal politics and threatened somewhat more clandestine mischief with mortal royalty. "We aren't going to stop you from having your fun in that respect, don't worry. You wouldn't be the first goddess to creep into a royal bedchamber."

"Locating a daemon who does not wish to be found is fairly difficult, sadly. Still, if you follow the trail of power, you might find one. You might also try calling out to them, as powerful as you are now it has a good enough chance of being heard."

Demons are notorious for their backstabbing political games. Creating a power struggle among them would be as good a way as any to see their threat eliminated, and if the demon king is dethroned from within we won't have to depose him ourselves."

With her newfound power, distance was little issue for Nala. Locating Violet was no more problematic than that; She was in Kyederon, as were the other survivors of Ch'Hiesol, and Nala was free to choose the manner of her reappearance. She sensed her mother and Obryd elsewhere, in a crowded area that was normally used for communal eating, while Violet paced in her chambers with only Charlotte and Amanda for company. How useful the assassin would actually be in Nala's next endeavor, however, was questionable at best.

Daemons were omnipresent in the spirit realm that mirrored physical reality, though the sort powerful enough to compare to her were not. Most weren't even intelligent, originating from animal spirits and the like and conglomerating more of the same as they grew and consumed or combined with other similar daemons. Finding those of greater power would be harder, and she would have to consign much of her search to the spirit realm unless she wished to attempt calling upon one of the other gods that she knew the name of.

Esmerala, comparably, would be no more difficult to find than Violet. The demoness was where she had been left in the woods, more or less, with her two retainers. They were unharmed and unthreatened by the jungle's natural hazards, and were just beyond the edge of the destructive radius around Ch'Hiesol.

 

[BlueSlime]

Re: Chasing Godhood (Blueslime)

"Then for now, I will concern myself with dismantling the powers in Celesis. And I shall refrain from putting myself in a position of absolute power over mortals. Unless you have any other advice or concerns to share, I will set about my tasks."

She would linger for some moments, to see if the archangel had more to convey to her. Then, once they had said their goodbyes, she chose to dematerialize back into the spirit realm. She dearly wished to travel immediately to Kyederon, and to speak to Violet, but she had recalled what her conversation with Avadel had been like at the end of her battle with the demon lord, and feared that she might somehow harm mortals with whom she spoke unless she learned how to properly control her new nature.

In the spirit realm, she made for herself a pocket of space that she formed into a familiar physical spot - her old room in Kyederon, before it had been overrun by the demons. She sat her form upon the bed and let her senses fan out from there.

She decided to call out to Matthias first. Who knew if he would answer her. His whims were his own, but perhaps it would amuse him to spare some words with her now, when she had just turned into the something he had suspected all along - the reason he had brought her back from death in the first place.

"Matthias, you old fool. Will you speak with me?" She asked, hoping that she was doing this right. "I've gone and done something. You've probably felt it. You and most other beings of note, I imagine. Well, I'm here now, and everything is different and I'm different."

Nala took a moment to consider, looking around at the vastness of the metaphysical emptiness around her, save for the omnipresence of mindless minor daemons who were keeping their distance well away from her.

"I find myself... lonely."

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Chasing Godhood (Blueslime)

Spoiler

Nala: PLOTTING

"I think this is when we part ways then," Michael replied, "You know all of the important things, and I wouldn't want to take up too much of your time. I suspect you'll be a busy woman all too soon." With that, the archangel bowed, accepting any of Nala's goodbyes before taking wing once more.

That left her free to choose her next path, and within a few moments she abandoned physical reality. Creating her little pocket dimension wasn't difficult, and even if they lacked any physical presence the familiar surroundings were quite lifelike. Her bed was as comfortable as ever as she sat and issued her call, and the daemon didn't have to wait long before she felt an answer... In the form of a stinging blow to her backside that phased through the bed and her clothes, a familiar hand planting itself on her backside. She turned, her perceptions shifting, and Matthias stood in his mortal guise, a wry smirk on his dark, chiseled features.

"That ass isn't too different. A bit fresher maybe... It could use some breaking in," He said thoughtfully, a mock note to his tone and playing across his face. "But that can wait... For a few minutes. Lets get the curiosities out of the way first, and your reunion with Violet too perhaps."

The daemon's presence in the spirit realm was different from any others she had witnessed so far. Living beings were like glowing beacons, even those with minor souls. Those with real power like Michael or Violet or Esmerala glowed like suns, and the former and latter felt like they would burn her with their warmth. Other daemons were like ethereal shadows, but felt so much closer with their detachment from reality. Matthias flared like the living but was far more compacted. What was more, his spirit felt impenetrably dense, and she could feel bands of power coiled around it, like chains meant to contain a prisoner.

 

[BlueSlime]

Re: Chasing Godhood (Blueslime)

The smarting blow made her gasp, but as the hand lingered on her, and cupped her rounded, sensitive flesh, she let the gasp morph into a pleasured sigh. She turned her face to the side and glanced at him, smiling as she did so.

"So you have been watching me. That's flattering, I suppose," the night elf said.

She looked at Matthias through her new eyes. The perception her new form afforded her deeper insight into the energies that made up all living and spiritual things. Even though she had already accepted that Matthias was something different and more powerful than all other sentient concepts known to the world, it was still fascinating to perceive him now - a prisoner within his own metaphysical form.

"It's also nice to know you're eager to break me in, as it were. I look forward to it, as always~."

Here she draped an arm over the dark figure's imposing figure and pressed herself to him without shame or inhibition.

"You mention my sweet Violet as though you were reading my mind. Yes, I desire to speak with her, and other mortals as well. I recall that when Avadel spoke with me not too long ago that greater daemons can easily overwhelm mortals when they appear to them, and I do not wish to do that.

"As for curiosities, there are a few, but mostly I would like to know about the domain of Venus, and to ask if I may take up that mantle from you. The archangel told me that you've been collecting souls on her behalf. I suppose you're more than qualified in that regard, but I remain singularly dedicated to it. Although if we are going to go through all of that, I will request that we be naked and intertwined with one another at the very least."

She rubbed her hands along his muscular frame and placed her lips against his collar bone.

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Chasing Godhood (Blueslime)

Spoiler

Nala: PLOTTING

"Watching is one way of thinking about it... Passively observing is perhaps more accurate. Some things are hard to miss."

Matthias grasped her backside with both hands as she nestled up against him, squeezing her through the thin layer of surreal fabric between metaphysical flesh and metaphysical flesh. It was an odd distinction, the thin veneer of what they wished to be perceived as and what they truly were existing and perceptible at the same time. It was so like physical reality but so very much not, the two next to one another like two filled vessels pressed together, but their contents allowed to mingle between the outer barriers separating them. Matthias was much more contained and much more dense than she, the seals around his power prevent most of the runoff she felt emanating from herself. He was orderly, controlled, contained, where she felt herself sprawled and messy.

"Mind and soul are not as distinct from each other as either of them are from the body. It isn't like you're particularly hard to read on that front either. Your fears are not unfounded, your presence is enough now that it would be uncomfortable to those sensitive but too weak in comparison. It doesn't follow the same rules, but the easiest way to describe it is like a behemoth sharing the same space as a mouse. If you want to avoid that, you need to contain yourself and keep your power restrained. Avedel was too weak when you last saw her to manage that level of control, but you are not."

"Bold... Well, not that I can blame you. Still, your understanding of it is perhaps too dramatic. Mantles and titles aren't anything significant, they were just an old marker used by the old gods to decide how to divvy out souls after Avedel took her tithe. Now that she is doing that again, however... You are welcome to them. I no longer need to become more powerful, and the addition of more mortal souls is fairly meaningless to me at this point anyway."

The more powerful daemon grinned, his grip on her backside growing firmer, creating a sensation not nearly as pleasant as it ought to have been even in their present pantomime of flesh. "If you want what's left of her, well... Maybe if you manage to impress me. There isn't much, I will warn you. Not as much as the three I let you release, even, and nothing resembling a whole or near the power of Janis you already took. And it will have to wait... As much as we can make this seem like physical reality, it will never truly compare on that field. Daemons don't reproduce, after all, and so have no need of nerves or flesh or any of the urges that come with them. The limits of physical reality are actually something of a benefit there. Perception is so much simpler, more immediate."

 

[BlueSlime]

Re: Chasing Godhood (Blueslime)

"So containing that power is not hard?" Nala asked, pressing her inquiry just to make sure. "I will be able to dampen how I appear to Violet and the others? Perhaps I should practice it a bit on the mortal plane."

She giggled.

"On the mortal plane... listen to me, talking about it as though I hadn't just been living my whole life there. Fuck. This whole daemon business is going to change me, isn't it?"

Her tone was intentionally ironic, and she looked up at Matthias with a soft grin, hoping that he'd find her comment funny. She didn't know why, but she delighted in being able to amuse the godslayer, in one fashion or another. Perhaps, if she really thought about it, she'd find that she was attracted to the sheer magnitude of his power, and yet even moreso, was interested in teasing out the basic human qualities within him.

"I make no demand of you, Matthias. I doubt anyone could. I only ask. It seems that if I'm to do my new job properly, I'll need some source of soul energy. And I thought you'd be inclined to allow me to have them, considering I am in a way a product of your own creation."

She swayed in his arms, fondling the daemon, with her wild, untamed energy spilling around his utterly controlled and condensed form.

"You could have just let me die, but you didn't. I owe what I am, and all that I can do, to you. Even if you don't believe it's a big deal in the grand scheme of things, it is a big deal to me."

She kissed him then, though as with all the physical contact she had with him in the spirit realm, it didn't feel as good as the real thing. It was like an illusory reality, where intent and feeling could be conveyed, but there was no biological reaction to aid it. Nala felt herself hating this fact, and resolved to walk the material realm as often as she could.

"So tell me what I can do to impress you, and I shall do it Matthias. If what you want is to have your way with me, then let us return to the jungle and there I will be yours in the flesh. We will delve deeper than mere perception. I want to feel you again, to taste you, to lose myself in the bliss of your touch. You won't have to be as gentle with me as you were before.~"

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Chasing Godhood (Blueslime)

Spoiler

Nala: LEWD

"Yes. You can do it in any number of ways. I'm sure you'll figure it out."

The night elven proto-goddess wry remark earned a brief, rumbling chuckle from the greater daemon. "I didn't think that would come as a surprise," He replied in a similar tone, the conveyance of tone effective in the pantomime of physical reality even though there was no true sound here.

"Mmmm..... I suppose. But you are still more responsible for your present state than I."

Matthias sighed slightly, but then smiled. "Eager... Well, that's not surprising. You really want to test your new limits, don't you?" The hands on her backside continued to grope, and the lack of resulting excitement only reinforced the innate lifelessness of being in the spirit realm. "Well then...."

Reality cracked, the phantom dimension she had created to pantomime life collapsing as she felt herself dragged away from it. The real world coalesced around her in turn, physical reality returning with all of its different senses and limitations. She was there for a moment, alone, and then Matthias appeared in physical form as well, a shard of pure darkness appearing before her and then expanding. The darkness gathered, gaining substance, and in moments he assumed his human guise, a tall man of dark skin clad only in black trousers, rather than the colossal black titan he was more commonly seen in.

He strode toward her as he formed, and when he reached her he wasn't exactly gentle. She felt him differently here, felt his constrained power but also energy emanating from him, his bleed off potent in its own right. All of the little things that had been missing when they were beyond the mortal realm were back, and came to a head as he grasped her by the back of the neck and practically yanked her against himself, forcing Nala into an open mouthed kiss that had his tongue deftly writhing circles around her own in moments. His other arm came around her waist, pulling her tight against him, but after a moment shifted back to her front and grasped her sparse garments. Then, in a single powerful rent, he simply tore it down off of her, rending the material apart like so much tissue paper and leaving Nala stripped of her major piece of clothing in the span of a few seconds, though his arm soon returned to holding her tight against him and he didn't immediately do anything else. Whether or not Nala would let herself be manhandled so domineeringly or attempt to assert some sort of her own control was up to her at that point, as she found herself in a brief lull of events while Matthias took a thorough taste of her.

 

[BlueSlime]

Re: Chasing Godhood (Blueslime)

Nala chuckled at Matthias as he noted her usual single-minded eagerness. Becoming a daemon will certainly have changed her, but some things remained a constant - and that would be Nala's attitude towards sex. He gripped her tightly, and in the span of an instant, her pocket dimension shattered and her consciousness was whisked away to the material plane, there to be reassembled in her familiar mortal guise.

Matthias then formed in a tall, dark-skinned human glamour, which he had used in previous trysts with the witch elf. Nala was fond of this form and had always enjoyed the feeling of being taken by a force of nature, even if it was guaranteed to end in a mind shattering series of orgasms. She was cooing at him as he strode forward, and though she had taken half a step towards him in greeting, he caught her by the back of the neck and dragged her into his embrace forcibly. The shock of it spiked her adrenaline, and before she knew it her lips were mashed against his, her mouth invaded by his tongue.

She recovered, and began to kiss back, her arms going around his shoulders to join in the embrace, but before they could link behind him, he pushed her back, found a grip on the bodice of her skimpy green dress and tore it away from her body with ease, leaving her dark purple flesh open to the jungle air and exposed to him. In the next instant, she had been pulled back against him. Her breasts mashed against his rock hard frame, pressing against his solid chest as her back arched and her neck craned to the side to join him once again in a kiss. She felt his hand on her backside, gripping it tightly, promising no escape from what the godslayer wanted.

Nala enjoyed the domineering, finding it both exciting and appropriate, given how powerful Matthias was compared to her and everything else. She couldn't imagine wanting him to act in any other way, and so she kissed back harder and gripped him with her nails scratching at his ebony back, and one of her slender, flexible legs lifting up along his side to tuck her toe in the hem of his pants and drag them down, hoping to return the favor and undress him as he had done to her.

Nala would not be timid in her lovemaking, she'd grin and throw him challenging looks, and she might even mockingly put in some resistance if he chose to let her free for a moment, but ultimately she wanted everything that he gave her. If he was interested in making her pleasure him, she would do so with eager appreciation, just as she would make herself available for him in any position he chose to put her in. She wanted to test her new limits. Matthias could break her at will, but he might be able to take her to her new breaking point slowly enough that she could recognize it before he finished her, and she was eager to see what that new point was.

"Hnnh... yesss~" She moaned as he gripped her roughly and kissed her. "Anything you want..."

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Chasing Godhood (Blueslime)

Spoiler

Nala: LEWD

Matthias simply grunted as the brief break in their kiss let her get in a word. She could have spoken into his mind, but like trying this sort of encounter in the purely metaphysical realm, it would have lacked all of the little pleasantries of reality. No brush of warm air across his lips, no desperate but eager tinge to her voice beneath her sultry tone, no vigorous push back against him following her brief bout of speech. It might have offered other avenues, ones she had never before explored given her preferred method of using magic and limited talents in the realm of psychic sorcery. As a daemon those limits were gone, though it would be up to Nala whether or not she wished to explore such new possibilities... And such was perhaps left for another time.

Now she could concentrate on the push and pull of flush, the rush of blood and hormones that seemed at once so much more distant than they ever had been but so much more necessary to connect her to life. Her foot rose, her frame now more flexible than it had ever been in her mortal life, tugging at the waistband of her supreme paramour's trousers, and down they came. Matthias' body had always been of supreme quality, in daemonic form an animate statue of pure daemonmetal, nearly indestructible and infused with enough magic even when he did not control it to rival any being that Nala had ever encountered and covered in glamour to give it his distinctive look. His human guise was no less flawless for its function, muscular and tall and darker than any she had seen, the old blood of Anudor that had been thought long lost to demonic incursion in physical manifestation.

Muscle tensed and flowed against her as he continued to hold her against himself, raw power and masculine virility pulsing against her no less flawless feminine counterpoint to it. Noble born night elf and human of foreign birth intertwined, a sacrilegious taboo to some, but neither she nor he were human anymore, and magic pulsed through them in invisible tendrils as Nala felt her energies reacting to her subconscious desires. For now it was just a dull magical buzz, a crackling of power in the air as her untamed spirit washed over her surroundings, but with a little guidance she could easily direct it into any form she wished to aid their tryst... Not that it was truly needed. With nearly a foot of hardening dark flesh pressing against her abdomen and an arm still around her waist and the back of her neck, they hardly need aphrodisiacs to help them along. For all of her numerous partners, Matthias h always been the best, the most physically imposing and the most able to make her writhe in mindless pleasure. It had not been simply from physical means, though he hadn't lacked for that either, but something more, something innate and magical and inscrutable that for all of her own delving into sexual magic, Nala had never before been able to comprehend. Perhaps now she would.

Taking a half step out of one pant leg, Matthias then lifted the other and kicked the garments aside, and then twisted Nala in his grasp until she was facing to the side. He released her neck but let her lips remain pressed hungrily against his as his tongue swirled against hers in a familiar writhing dance, making no use of quick darting or deft movements to tease her. He had demonstrated skill in such before, had proven able to use his tongue and fingers gently to reduce her to a writhing mass with skill that would have made Esmerala jealous had she known of it, but now did not seem to be one of the times he intended to put those skills to use. Now he was primal and commanding, physically manhandling her as his desires went, and while many men - particularly those of a martial disposition - were want to treat her in such a manner, it wouldn't be entirely wrong to say that none of them deserved it compared to the one who was doing it now.

A slight trailing of fingertips down her spine as his hand descended was all the warning Nala got before Matthias' hand cracked against her backside, striking the night elf's fleshy backside just hard enough to sting before gripping a handful and kneading the pain out of the soft flesh. His other hand left her waist and reached up to firmly grip one of her breasts, giving it much the same treatment, and though the rough handling would rarely have proved stimulating Nala felt her nerves come alive at the greater daemon's touch, singing with sensation that no one else save perhaps Esmerala could ever inspire.

He spent a few moments admiring the soft portions of her physique, but then began rolling his thumb over her nipple while his fingers drifted between her legs. Two thick digits slid between her lower lips, drawing them apart just slightly and slipping across their delicate surface, and once more she felt every sensation magnified by power she could barely comprehend. Now, however, as he steadily worked her towards readiness, Nala could do a bit more to analyze the power that let him pleasure her so, the tiny portions of magic working at a microscopic scale rather than a systemic one like most such spells, and to boot it was without the directed nature of one doing it consciously. It seemed almost automatic, reflexive perhaps, and the longer he pressed against her the more intense it became.

Matthias' teasing didn't last long. A few seconds of light brushing and his fingers pushed a little deeper, then deeper, penetrating her folds an inch or so before beginning to and whirling in a circular motion. Pleasure coiled up her spine, flesh singing in praise at every touch, but once again Nala wasn't pleasured for long. A few whirls of his fingers, a few slight tugs on the tip of her breast, and Matthias withdrew slightly, breaking the kiss and grinning at her with eyes and teeth shining from his dark face. "Alright... Lets see what you can do now," He said, and if his intentions weren't clear, a hand on her shoulder pushing her down to her knees would be clear enough indication of what he desired of her.