Chapter 3 - Dayna
The cluster of candles on her desk flickered, disturbed by a cold breeze blowing through her west facing window. The elven mage stopped reading to get up and draw the window's shutters closed. Typical among elven kind, Dayna stood just over six feet tall. She was clad in a grey tunic, cinched around the waist with a silvered chain belt. A pair of dark blue hose were tucked into her black calfskin boots - she was wearing her comfortable traveling clothes rather than the usual university robe. Her wavy auburn hair was tied behind her in a ponytail to keep it out of her eyes. Shutters closed, the tall mage returned to the text she had been roused from. Her grey-green eyes flitted from line to line, her lips pursed in concentration.
The cover of the book in her hands read 'Forbisher's Bestiary of the Outer Hells'. Dayna was a demonologist at the University of Drasich and tonight she was on the cusp of an academic breakthrough. Recent observations of the Demonic realms known colloquially as the Hells had posited that a significant power struggle was underway. Ruled by a cabal of powerful demon lords from their strongholds in the Inner Realms, the Hells were continually embroiled in a low intensity civil war as demons who grew in power politicked and vied for positions of authority. Despite this, the most powerful demon lords, known as Demon Princes, had held on to their positions at the top of the hierarchy for almost a millenia and up until recently the infernal game had been the domain of the lesser lords attempting to secure a position slightly higher up the food chain.
Signs indicated the situation was changing, however. Summoners had found their conjured demons had shifted allegiances. Lords of Hell who had once been subservient to a specific Prince or Duke now claimed free-agent status or had switched loyalties entirely. For Dayna, this shift had become the subject of her post-graduate thesis and this night she was finalizing her preparations for a trip into one of the outer realms.
Her objective was the realm of a Duke of Hell named Habernalle. She had met the Duke a few times prior, accompanying her tutor on trips through portal gates on fact finding and reagent gathering journeys. Each time one travelled the outer realms there were countless preparations to be made, and this time, her first solo trip, was no different. Wards had to be crafted, spells memorized and charms acquired. Even with the appropriate protections, to gain an audience with a demon lord required a trade, and Dayna had spent a small fortune getting her hands on a few artifacts of power to offer for the information she required.
As she sat at her desk jotting down a few final notes in her journal, her familiar scurried about, packing a small handcart with the various luggage and supplies needed for the journey. Gomp was a two and a half foot tall imp with dark red skin, tiny, leathery wings, nubby, inch long horns, a spade tipped tail and a propensity for sniffing the contents of Dayna's laundry basket when he thought she wasn't looking. She had summoned the depraved creature in her first year at the university and had bound him to her with a small diamond shaped tattoo on the lower left side of her neck. Being bound to a mage was an annoyance to demon-kind, but could only happen if the mage responsible was significantly more powerful than the demon. Furthermore, the demon's free will was not limited except for a restriction on harming their summoner and the ability for the mage to warp the creature to their side at will. The result, for Dayna, was having command over a small bundle of leering, consistently lewd trouble. Between his refusal to wear clothes, his habit of smelling her underwear and groping her whenever he thought he could get away with it and trying to steal things from her fellow students, faculty and anyone who happened to be within range, the elven mage found the foul mouthed imp to be almost more trouble than he was worth. Still, the diminutive, horny creature had helped her out of a few tight spots (often in exchange for favours the elf would rather not talk about), and his few innate magical abilities came in rather useful for some of the more complex spells she had attempted.
"Alright boss. We're good to go," said Gomp as he pulled the supply laden cart to the edge of the portal circle etched into the ground in the centre of Dayna's study. "How 'bout dat reward you promised me?"
Dayna turned in her chair to see the imp rubbing his semi-erect cock while grinning lasciviously at her. "Fine," she replied, turning back to the bestiary lying open on her desk, "but only a couple of minutes while I finish my reading and my shirt stays on."
The imp chortled with glee as he scurried over to Dayna's desk. "Dis is gonna be good!" he said as he clambered into her lap, his faintly sulfuric odour filling her nose and his demonic heat radiating through her trousers and warming the skin where he perched on her thighs.
The randy familiar flashed his pointed teeth in a lusty grin as he reached up with both hands to grope Dayna's pert breasts, his small, clawed hands not quite able to fully envelop even her modest bosom. The elven mage tried ignore the frenzied efforts of the lust-driven imp, but couldn't help glancing down from her book as he delivered a sharp pinch to each of her nipples, causing them to strain against the fabric of her tunic. The red skinned creature's cock had swollen to a foot in length and Dayna could see clear, musky smelling pre-cum oozing from its engorged head.
"Off!" she shouted, tilting her legs to deposit Gomp unceremoniously onto the floor. "I don't want that nasty stuff on my clothes!"
The imp grumbled as he picked himself up off the floor and shuffled around behind her chair, managing to look dejected even as his foot long erection bobbed along in front of him. "Fine, but I still get to play with dem titties while I jerk!" he said petulantly as he reached back around to squeeze her left breast with one hand once he was behind her.
Dayna sighed. "Whatever. I just better not find any of your disgusting jizz on my clothes when you're done. And you're cleaning it off the floor before we leave."
"Yes ma'am," said the imp, underscoring the last word with another firm pinch of Dayna's nipple.
A few minutes later, Dayna stood in the centre of the portal circle, staff in hand, satchel over her shoulder and a fine, long dagger tucked into her boot. She'd checked the cart properly and had encased it in a basic protective ward - good enough to keep anyone not looking for it from noticing it was even there. Now she waited for Gomp as the tiny demon scrubbed the floor behind her chair with a soapy sponge. Once he was finished, he walked over to stand between the handles of the small cart and dragged it into the circle.
As Dayna began the portal incantation, her sewer-tongued familiar looked up at her and said "Dem boobies aren't very big, but I still shoulda asked for a tittyfu-"
And then everything went black.
Traveling by portal is a disorienting experience, but Dayna was used to it. She was more worried about what might lie on the other side. If her calculations were off, she might end up embedded in a mountain, or transported to a realm where air doesn't exist or, in the worst case, adrift in the void. She'd brought along spells to create a pocket of breathable air or a floating platform among various other helpful spells and thought she was well prepared, but when she and Gomp rematerialized what she really wished she'd done is put on her cloak before they left.
It was raining. Judging by the bleak, black, blue and purple rocks surrounding them and the twisted, leafless trees she could see in the distance, Dayna had gotten the location right. This was definitely Duke Habernalle's realm. Despite the accuracy of her portal, however, Dayna wasn't happy. The reason for her unhappiness was the translucent, thick, viscous slime that was pouring torrentially from the deep black clouds that covered the sky. It fell in fat, heavy drops and by the time she'd retrieved her dark grey waterproof cloak from the handcart Gomp was dragging, her hair was matted and her clothes clung soggily to her skin. She wiped away a goopy strand of the stuff as it dripped in a long string from her earlobe and quickly pulled her hood up.
Gomp, red skin shining wetly with the goo rain, was lying in a laughing, twitching heap between the handles of the cart. "Ha! And you said you didn't want any of my sticky stuff on your clothes! Dat's some fucking rich irony!" he sputtered out between guffaws of mirth.
