Confrontations And Curveballs

A few minutes after Troik's arrival, I looked at the little goblin and readied myself to tell him the truth. I knew that if I didn't handle this delicately it might be unnecessarily complicated, so I took a second to steady myself and prepare to deliver some bad news, and then some great news.

I closed my eyes, while still patting Troik, and channeled my inner divine voice. As soon as I felt confident in my ability to channel the sort of pride I felt gods ought to show, I spoke telepathically to Troik, pretending to be Cosecha.

"Hello little one." I said, politely greeting the tiny creature. I quickly heard a loud and energetic reply from the little guy. The goblin turned and looked in Cosecha's direction, before swiftly letting go of me and dashing over to stand where the creature was facing.

"Hello Cosecha! How are you?" He asked, speaking eagerly as if to an old friend. I smiled, though Troik didn't notice this as the tiny goblin was now a bit away from me.

"I am well. How are you?" I asked, curiously. I wondered how the goblin had slept and what time my friend had awoken. It was now mid-morning, and the day was gradually progressing, even if it felt like today had dragged on for a bit.

I wondered about my friend would respond to my question. I thought and hoped that the tiny goblin was having a good day, but I also considered the real possibility that he wasn't. It'd make sense for him to be scared, and would in fact be wise for him to be. Troik considered my question for a second before answering it honestly.

"I'll be honest with you Cosecha... I'm scared." The green fellow confessed. This surprised me, but not entirely. I mean I hadn't expected a solid admission of fear from the creature, but I was expecting the guy to be afraid.

On my first day of life, I had encountered him far from the other goblins, alone and stuck in a trap. I rescued him, but shortly afterward a demon that was possessing him revealed itself and fled, taking him with it. I was able to free him from the demon's ability to control him, but the demon itself has lingered in him. Today, in the next few minutes even, I planned to change that.

"It's okay to be afraid Troik. But today is the day you get your life back. Today is the day we defeat this creature and drive it out of you, once and for all." I explained, speaking as Cosecha and informing the goblin as to the plan.

Based on what I had been told about demons earlier and the fact that it seemed that I was about to have a confrontation with a demon I was able to make an inference as to what would happen when I cured the disease: the demon possessing my friend would likely be expelled from Troik. When that happened it'd most likely fall on me to either defeat the thing or trick others into thinking I had beaten it.

"Cosecha" looked at Troik and made eye-contact with him. The two were silent for a moment before Cosecha began to mentally speak once more.

"When you're ready I'm going to cure you of the demonic infection you're suffering from. I won't do it until you're ready though, so take your time. This will mark the first time I've cured someone of a magical disease, so I want you to feel comfortable and be ready when I do." I explained, to a gently nodding Troik.

The goblin went ahead and sat down. And then he mentally spoke to me. His message was simple. "I'm ready. I'm ready to be cured. To be freed. Please." He told me, asking for his freedom. I smiled and mentally messaged my elven allies and my dryadic high-priestess.

"It's time. Ready yourselves. I don't want anyone else to be at risk. I don't fully know what'll happen when I cure Troik of the disease he's suffering from, a demonic infection. I suspect that when I do that the demon that has forced Troik's body to accommodate it will be expelled. If it is I intend to destroy it." I explained, informing everyone present aside from the trees I had animated of the uncertainty of the next few moments.

Raiz backed up, looking to me to keep her safe. The elves stood up and backed up. Farrane rose her hands in the direction of the goblin, and Calorron put his hands on his bow. I could sense that they were ready for violence. I chuckled but did so quietly enough that they didn't notice.

I waited a second before I activated my power. I double-checked on my allies, they looked more ready than ever. With a smile on my face I quietly targeted Troik, and activated my ability to cure diseases. I watched as radiant energy washed over the goblin, bathing him in resplendent light.

Troik began to shake, his body vibrating violently. My companions tensed up, and I readied myself for whatever was about to happen. As Troik shook, I noticed that there was a relieved smile on his face. And then I received a welcome notification.

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[Alert: You have successfully cured the goblin named Troik of "Demonic infection". Your ability to cure diseases has meshed with your ability to learn about and infect creatures with diseases.

A new disease has been added to your repertoire of biological warfare. You can now infect someone with 'Demonic infection'.

Demonic infection information: This nasty disease opens up even the strongest-willed beings to possession. Its symptoms are all largely unserious, aside from the fact that those infected by it become over 50% easier to possess. The disease has an incubation period of three hours but sadly isn't contagious. Possessed creatures cannot transmit the disease.

Demonic infection symptoms when a mortal is infected: Headaches, irritability, increased libido, greater sinful behavior in general, and finally significantly enhanced susceptibility to possession.

Special note: As a lord of lust there are two minor edits you can make to the disease within yourself.

You can choose to transmit this disease to mortals by engaging in lustful acts with them, and you can give demons who serve you a special version of this disease that spreads to mortals who engage in lustful acts with them. If you want to further edit this disease, you need to gain more influence over the domain of disease.

Transmitting Demonic infection: The relative rareness of this disease is due to the unlikely conditions by which it is spread. In order to be infected by "Demonic infection" one must suffer a wound from a demon and then survive the battle in which they received it. All demons are capable of infecting someone with this disease.

If you want to infect mortals with this disease normally all you have to do is land a blow against them and will them to be infected with the disease. There's a chance they could resist being infected, but if that's the case you'll be alerted to the fact that they resisted and can simply try again until they fail to resist. Mortals cannot resist being infected if they willingly engage in lustful acts with you.]

I read through the notification and it vanished right as Troik suddenly stopped vibrating. The timing was perfect because at the moment that Troik stopped vibrating, the light that protectively covered his body flowed out of him and was replaced with the deepest darkness I had ever seen.

Troik's entire body was momentarily covered in pitch-black darkness, making him look like a goblin-shaped silhouette. The darkness only covered him for a moment though, and the strange substance quickly poured onto the floor at his feet, pooling onto the grass he was sitting beside.

I immediately focused on the darkness and extended my mind towards it. When I did I felt that the darkness possessed a consciousness, something I knew but was happy to have confirmed anyway, and that I could establish contact with it. And at that moment I knew that I had a decision to make. But before I did anything else I immediately did two things.

One of the things I did was bathe the demon in an intense, holy light that I radiated outward from Cosecha's fabricated form, to see if that forcibly stunned it. It appeared too because the thing suddenly shook like it had had just endured a terrible attack. I suppose in a way it might have.

And at the same time, I pulled the earth on which the creature resided into the air. I was trying to limit its movement, and I was able to do everything fast enough that it couldn't react to my actions in time to escape.

While the monster was stunned I mentally spoke to my allies. I sent everyone a quick message and then teleported away all while creating an illusionary Althos out of manipulated light. My message was simple.

"I'm gonna go deal with this creature. Give me a moment and I'll be back." I told them, my mental voice filled with authority and power, tolerating no dissent or back-talk. They were silent in response to my words, and I smiled as I took the creature to my underground lair.

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In an instant, I and the creature vanished from the view of my allies. We covered a distance of several kilometers and reappeared within an empty room located inside of the subterranean tower I had constructed last night.

The creature was still stunned by the suddenness of the past few moments, and the power of the holy light I bathed it in so it didn't try to fight back against me yet. I had at least a few moments to think and make an important choice.

"What should I do?" I asked myself. I knew that the demon in front of me didn't stand a chance if I opted to destroy it or at least banish it to its native dimension since I could control light and holy energy. A part of me was tempted to do that after all the thing had sort of been my very first enemy.

Another part of me wanted to see if the creature had the wisdom to serve me. I knew it was a sentient being, the thing had spoken to me when I first met and rescued Troik and it had also sent monsters after me. If it did, I could imagine at least a few ways the thing could be useful.

One thing I knew for sure was that I wanted to talk to the thing. I had some knowledge, but what I knew was mostly limited to my own limited life experience and things about domains. I could imagine that the thing was privy to all manners of knowledge. I wanted to talk to it, and learn some of that knowledge before I harmed it, if it ended up coming to that.

While I waited for the creature to regain its senses and begin to talk to me, I asked the domain of knowledge what I was looking at. I received an answer right away.

"Well, Althos... what you're looking at is a demon hyper-specialized in possession. And more than that... it's a sort of demon whose blood is used in making conjuration circles. These demons exist to do two things: bring more of their kind to mortal worlds, and to pave the way for demonic invasions." Said the domain of knowledge, sounding shocked by this. And that was further explained by the system, who spoke next.

[Althos what you're looking at is a praereptor demon, the first kind of demon sent either by the forces of the Heart of Darkness, or their mortal allies. This demon is... a scout. Its existence here is a significant development.] The system told me, sounding rather perturbed by this. And it wasn't quite done talking just yet. After a few moments of silence, it added something to its thoughts.

[If you opt to banish the thing, make sure you learn everything you can from it. Take your time extracting the truth from the thing before you return it to its home dimension. Who knows what this thing knows...] The system urged, still sounding uncommonly serious.

The demon began to groan painfully. I chuckled and looked at it, as it began to regain some sort of coherence. It was still a puddle of darkness, but now it had thoroughly covered the entire surface on which I had trapped it. I opened my mouth and began to speak.

"Hello! Do you remember me? When we last met you said I'd 'pay' if we saw each other again." I told the once arrogant demon I had captured. The thing began to make a sound that wasn't unlike water suddenly turning into steam. At that moment I linked our consciousnesses and spoke to it mentally.

"You'll find that you can now send me mental messages. And I recommend you do. You and I need to have a chat." I told the thing, speaking into its mind. I waited a few seconds and then got a mental message back.

"Well... hello 'Althos'. I don't know what you are but something tells me that you're about to tell me, aren't you?" The thing asked, its mental voice sounding surprisingly deep and unsurprisingly filled with malice. I couldn't help but smile. It was right.