Logan sat in a dining chair at a wooden table that appeared to be oak. His leg restlessly shook up and down with the repetition of a sewing machine. Kragen sat across from him.

  “I guess ya had surprise on ya side,” Kragen said, breaking the silence.

  “Huh?” Logan asked, turning to look at Kragen.

  “The priest, ya must’ve surprised him.”

  “Not sure how much surprise someone gets when they are charged,” Logan said in a kind of matter of fact. “Hell, one well placed kick could’ve knocked me on my ass.”

  Kragen chuckled a little. “Yeah you’d be right. Considering what Liliana and Carissa think you are.”

  “What is Liliana?” Logan asked.

  “What do you mean? She’s an alchemist. Making potions, elixirs, and the like.”

  “No, I get that I saw the lab around her.” Logan replied, trying not to sound rude. “I mean what is she? I know a few people who put horns on their heads for aesthetics, but she is the first I’ve met that has real horns coming out of her head.”

  Kragen didn’t answer Logan or at least immediately. Instead he looked to the doorway. “Do you want to explain, or should I?” Kragen asked, to seemingly no one.

  Liliana poked her head from behind the threshold. “It’s probably best if I do,” she admitted, moving to join them.

  “First I’d like to apologize for my erratic behavior,” she admonished as she sat. “It is just the first time I've been blind to someone.”

  “Blind?” Logan asked, noticing that she clearly could see at least enough to get around.

  “Your aura I mean,” Liliana explained. “Most people have one. The exceptions being the already dead like zombies, vampires in some cases, and living people strong to suppress their own aura to minimize the projection of it.”

  “Well, I’m not dead,” Logan pointed out.

  Kragen laughed. “Ya boy that’s what scares her. Most people who fit in the ladder category are beings that are much older than major cities, and a small few of those are still living.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question,” Logan pointed out again. “What are you?”

  Liliana slightly held her breath waiting for the metaphorical axe to fall. “In short, a demon. More specifically a succubus.”

  Logan leaned back in his chair mulling over what she said. “I didn’t sell my soul or anything yet, right?”

  Liliana nodded in agreement, still holding back a breath.

  “Damn, that would’ve been worth it.”

  Liliana blinked in surprise. “What?”

  “What selling my soul granted, would probably suck long-term if I died. Given what I’ve heard from Kragen and yourself it would be well worth it.”

  “You know if that were to happen and she had less morals. You would most likely be a test subject for her potions and such, right?”

  “My point still stands,” Logan acknowledged and affirmed.

  Carissa and the two priests came in.

  Logan stood and approached the two priests, reaching out his hand for them to shake. “I would like to apologize for my behavior towards the two of you. My actions did not present myself or my friend in the best light, and I hope we can at the very least be hospitable to one another going forward,” Logan said, adopting an heir of diplomacy in his voice.

  The priest of what Logan believed to be crafting by the brief descriptions Kragen had given him chuckled. “I would like that. However, if the roles were reversed I am sure we would have done the same.”

  “Well if that is the case, my name is Logan McCarthy,” Logan said, turning to a more relaxed but still professional way of speech. “May I get yours?”

  “This is Thomas, an archbishop to the church of war,” said the crafting priest, pointing to his companion before pointing at himself. “As for myself. I am an archbishop to the god of crafting. You may call me Fredrick.”

  Logan just nodded before gesturing for them to sit.

  “So why is his friend a slave?” Kragen asked, obviously unhappy with the predicament of one of his guests.

  …

  Dani raised her head after being under water in the large basin they called a tub. The water was comforting Although it was less so after it had cooled from the time she got in. Her hair was now clean and the thin layer of dirt that she had felt on her had long gone away. Tense muscles were soothed by the salt that Liliana had put in.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  Dani didn’t know what to make of Liliana. She had seemed way too tense for someone making a bath for another. Granted Logan rampaging on a random priest definitely didn’t help. Liliana had also given a few useful tips to help against the collar stuck around her neck. Unfortunately, most of it wouldn’t work for her directly since most of it required another person depending on the runes and other markings on the inside of the band.

  She unconsciously pulled it, a growing habit for her in some way. “Will this get any worse?”

  She was told that there might be some miscommunication between all parties involved. Being the subject, she had a feeling that was a gross understatement.

  A knock on the bathroom pulled Dani from her thoughts.

  “Yes?” Dani asked.

  “Um… Dani?” said an uncertain male voice.

  “Yes?”

  “Miss Liliana asked me to give you some clothes she picked for you.”

  “Okay, Can you set them just inside the door?”

  She heard a muffled response, before the door was opened just enough for a hand and a set of clothes to be gently tossed into the room and just barely missed the stool that the person was aiming for. She gave a brief thanks and proceeded to exit the bath.

  After she had dried herself she looked at the outfit. It looked to be a simple pair of brown pants and a white blouse. They looked to be a bit on the bigger side on a scale of will it fit her. Then she noticed a third item, a leather corset.

  “Am I going to sail the seven seas? All I would need is a ship and crew.” she joked to herself. She looked at the outfit again as she put it on. “Ay, barmaid can me and my fellows get another round of ale?” she said in a rough imitation of what a grizzled bar patron would sound like.

  After tidying up the outfit making herself look decent in a pair of pants that were too small and a blouse that was too big. She ventured off and wandered to find the others who were no doubt talking about her.

  …

  “It wasn’t my intention to galavant onto the estate galavanting a slave. Mister Bloodmoon, your reputation on the fact of slavery is well-known. My god is happy with your resolve on the topic as a matter of fact,” noted Thomas, the priest of war, increasingly nervous as the man’s expression he spoke got darker.

  “Then enlighten me on why it looks like you did what looks to have done exactly that.”

  “Because of him,” Thomas replied politely gesturing to Logan.

  “Me?” Logan asked, pointing at himself.

  “Yes, you,” Thomas confirmed, before turning back to Kragen. “Do you remember the last time a ‘child of conquest’ came here, Kragen? I do, I was there. That monster’s aura was like nothing I’ve ever seen. Commanding legions and conquering on a whim. That was nearly two centuries ago. The fact that one is here is very, very troubling.”

  “Actually, there might be two,” commented Dani as walked, relieved that she finally found the right room.

  She did not note the tenseness of the two priests that matched their pale faces.

  Taking an empty seat at the table. She leaned over to the person who sat next to her. Luckily, it was Carissa who liked the predicament of the clergymen deciding if they were in the frying pan or the fire.

  “Come to me chil…” she started, before Carissa put a hand over her mouth.

  “Please don’t,” she asked. “You may not know our customs, but asking for a child of conquest is a sin of the greatest magnitude excluding a few churches that aren’t allowed in civilized society.”

  Dani didn’t speak, but did look at Logan who just shrugged.

  “Alright then please fill us in,”

  “Children of Conquest are seen as figures seen committing genocide because someone sneezed wrong. There are others like them, however conquest is the worst. It is one thing to wipe out small towns or inconsequential countries with a famine or two. I have a few members of my church who can do exactly that. It is a common tactic to starve out a town, but bloodshed just because someone offended you or just to spill blood is another.”

  “Everything needs balance,” Logan guessed.

  Frederick nodded. “Unlike most of the people in the room. I was not even a thought back then. However, rumor is a child of conquest wanted peace and he got it at least for a little while.” he confided. “As the story goes it wasn’t until his spouse was killed in an invasion that he took up the mantle he neglected. In his rage and in the midst of battle he ended up killing his own son who was enslaved and put on the frontlines to fight his father. The aftermath of that massacre made everyone fear conquest’s children. It took entire armies and even their countries did not survive.”

  Dani and Logan sat in silence as the story was told. In Logan’s mind in the broad strokes it was logical in an eye for an eye mentality, a bit on the over dramatic mixed with an apparent over reaction, but vaguely logical.

  “Okay…” Logan started, trying to formulate the words he wanted to say. “Wait, wouldn’t your god like children of conquest due to the war-like element?”

  “Yes and no. There needs to be a balance to war other than just a victory.” Thomas started to explain. “If it is just brutality for brutality’s sake, no. If a skirmish broke out because of a tariff between nations is fine.”

  “So no mass genocide of a nation. Damn I was really looking forward to making napalm on that holes I’ve been.”

  “Dani, please don’t.” Logan said. “I don’t know what you’ve been through, but R.O.E should be self defense only since we have no idea of the culture here. Besides, you know napalm is a war crime. We can’t use lethal chemical weapons on our world, so we shouldn’t use them here.”

  “We’re in a new world,” Dani counted. “So it doesn't count besides you and I know it is not a war crime the first time.”

  Logan had to suppress a chuckle as the counter about war crimes was often a joke among Post 9/11 veterans like himself and Dani. The others in the room look horrified.

  “War crimes?” asked Fredrick hesitantly. “R.O.E?”

  “Rules of Engagement,” Thomas explained. “Hopefully, I am only guessing but given the context it seems applicable.”

  “As for war crimes?” Liliana budded in wanting to get a semblance of the conversation back on track to something she could understand. Her knowledge of war only experiments that were worthwhile on a battlefield to get the injured less so.

  “Things deemed too inhumane for warfare. Like the use of napalm in Dani’s instance.” Logan explained. “Conventional warfare standards protocol three. We can’t use incendiary weapons against civilians as decided by the Geneva Convention in 1980.”

  “You should know that from SOI.” he continued, keeping one eye on Dani.

  Kragen got up to grab a pitcher. “What exactly are you two?” he asked, grabbing cups to pass out.

  “Apparently, out of depth,” Dani said leaning back in her chair.

  Logan chuckled, snapping the tension in the room like a piece of kindling. “Yes we are.”

  Everyone passed glances at the two of them conspicuously noticing that their question went unanswered.