The Fiend's Creation System

Pale Demons 1

Two heavily armed men were sitting together at a corner table in a rowdy tavern at Redgrove City. One of them had a tired look on his face while the other one was contemplating hard about something before he looked up and spoke to his companion.

“Hey, the boss just told me about our newest mission...seems like we’ll be teaming up with a few of those damned zealots.”

“What’s the mission about this time?”

“Some pale demons were spotted at the Ecklewood Forest. Just some of the low-ranked ones though. The boss wants us to team up with those zealots and clear it up quickly before returning.”

“Those things have been appearing more frequently as of late...did the city lord issue any warnings about them yet?”

“Not sure... but, even a blind man can tell that something’s up with those monsters.”

The two men’s food arrived and they quickly started eating after they thanked the beautiful waitress that served them.

“Thanks, Maggie.”

‘Maggie’, the waitress, smiled somewhat mechanically at the two men before turning away without a word. Her behavior seemed rather odd but the two men didn’t care to question it and decided to eat their meals instead.

While they were eating, the two resumed their conversation, “I heard they attacked the city before but it ended up failing...could they be looking to attack again?”

“Those damned zealots...after they arrived, the people and the fiends have been getting a little on edge. Nobody seems friendly anymore.”

“Yeah...the last time those demons attacked the city, I hear it was because the church had touched something they shouldn’t have.”

“Mhm, I guess it’s because of this that the citizens are getting a little jumpy and those demons have become more active.”

This conversation was going on between two mercenaries who were the captain and vice-captain of a mercenary group.

One of Julius’s fiends was part of this group under the guise of a young mercenary that had the misfortune to encounter a mimic while he was out on a solo mission inside the Redgrove Forest. 

The disguised mimic was actually sitting close by and noticed his two ‘captains’ sitting and talking together. When he heard about the fiends in Ecklewood Forest, the forest located in the direct opposite location from the Redgrove Forest, had sightings of ‘pale demons which naturally referred to his kin, the fiends, the mimic quickly relayed this information to Julius.

As far as he knew and as far as his Lord knew, there weren’t any fiends stationed in Ecklewood Forest. Many people were coming and going from Redgrove City because it was one of the few hubs of commerce for the light alliance’s forces in the south and since the merchants, adventurers and mercenaries had reported sightings of the fiends when there shouldn’t be any there... it was only natural that this needed some attention from his Lord.

After Julius had taken over the city and reopened it, normal humans had begun pouring back to the city with all of them oblivious to the fact that all of the city’s citizens were now fiends.

With the way Julius handled the city, it somehow grew more and more prosperous despite only a month or so since his attack on the city had passed by. Merchants, adventurers, and mercenaries began pouring back into the city when they heard that there were lower tax rates, unique elven items being sold on the market, along with the large amount of work one could find here with the hefty commissions that were provided.

Julius was taking advantage of the adventurer and mercenary guilds for monster subjugation. His fiends didn’t really need any money so whatever he had acquired through searching the previous lord’s treasury, he put that all into creating monster-hunting commissions.

When the monster corpses were handed in, Julius would pay the adventurers and mercenaries their rewards and have the corpse shipped to his sanctum which would then turn into food and resources for his fiends.

Some of the monster corpses would be stripped of valuable materials and sold to the elves who either bought them using money or bartered with some unique elven products which would then be sold back at the city to the humans.

This was the usual cycle so, despite all of his extravagant spending for ‘enslaving’ the humans to do his dirty work, he wouldn’t be losing but gaining more because the money would just circulate back to him in some way.

The only thing that irked him was the fact that the church had come back and waltzed into his city acting all important. They demanded a unique tax which would be paid by the city lord to the church for ‘protection from evil’ hubris, but Julius quickly shut them up by having his ‘citizens’ riot and protest in front of their church, condemning them for the recent attack on the city by the ‘pale demons’. 

It was because of this that the church’s people became known as the crazy or mad zealots and the rumor, or rather, the confirmed fact that the fiends’ previous assault on the city was due to the actions of the church.

Of course, no one dared to say this out loud in confirmation because they were far too scared to get on the church’s bad side. However, the human-disguised fiends weren’t afraid to show their loathing so the church was actually pretty isolated here and their influence couldn’t propagate anywhere.

For now, the church was keeping mum about all this and they didn’t do anything too out of line so Julius left them be. He didn’t want to destroy the church just yet because he had a few fiends disguised as clergymen hidden within the church’s ranks already and they were providing him with concrete information about the church’s movements here in the Redgrove region.

The two mercenaries had finished their lunch so they stood up to leave after leaving behind the payment on the table. Just as they were about to walk past the young mercenary who was now secretly a fiend, the more energetic of the two quickly grabbed him and said, “Alright you lazy sprout let’s go! Don’t think I didn’t see you sneakily pop in after me and Paqi!”

“A-Ack!”

The mimic had to play his part so it pretended to be surprised and let the man drag him out of the tavern.

*****

“Interesting...fiend sightings in Ecklewood? None of my fiends have crossed through that place before so who’s trying to impersonate my people?”

Julius was tapping his armrest and contemplating on whether he should send a few of his fiends there to see what was going on. 

If some people were trying to make use of his race’s name and appearance to gain infamy or mess with him, he’d like to see these foolish people’s faces before he dragged them here and painfully converted them into a fiend so that they could stay true to their lie.

Julius hummed before looking over to his side and asked, “Sammael...are you up for it?”

A large dark fiend with four arms was standing to his left like a guard. This fiend wore a set of dark-tinted heavy armor with a large shield and spear on his back. Two ominous-looking swords dangled at his waist giving him a very foreboding look like he was the last boss of a video game. 

This was the reborn Sammael who had evolved into a dark fiend. When he had first emerged from the Dark Pool, Sammael had wreaked a lot of havoc on the Dark Spire Island, but thankfully, Eisha was there and she had been able to quickly straighten him out. 

Julius didn’t know what she did but Sammael had become a very loyal subordinate after only a day of rehabilitation from his wife.

When he was addressed, the dark fiend quickly said in a hoarse voice, “Yes, my Master...shall I also use this chance to take care of those hateful zealots?”

“Do what you want, just make sure to bring back a few living ones. I have use for them.”

“As you wish, my Master.”

“Quickly take care of this trivial matter. We’ll be expecting some guests to come real soon.”

Sammael bowed and excused himself. He was at the Main Sanctum right now so he needed to return to the Dark Spire and rally his dark fiends before setting off to complete his task.

Julius closed his eyes after Sammael left and connected with the mimic that he assigned to keep an eye on the demons from the Lothur Continent.

“Grand Demon Bael...I look forward to our meeting…”