Klipyl Short Story - Rejected - Chapter 1

The flames of the abyss spat her out above a red sea, and she felt this plane’s teeth grip her tight.

With no land in sight and no idea where she was, there was no choice but to pick a direction and fly. Just as she turned towards the sullen orange orb overhead to use it as a reference, it burped out of existence. With no navigation skills to aid her plight, she cursed her mother for keeping her locked in the brothel since birth. Klipyl tried to orient off the white frothing waves of the crimson red sea and fly towards where the orb had been. The appearance and sour metallic scent resembled the thin red blood she’d heard was possessed by many mortal species, though she didn’t know why it bore this similarity.

Though curious about the changes in her appearance after her run through the abyssal flames, the dark sea below her was a poor mirror. Tempted to descend, she wasn’t about to risk getting close to whatever might swim beneath its waves. Her ascension had spat her out on this plane in an agony-clouded state, but she’d possessed enough wits to recognise the teeth that warned of a new planar binding.

The Abyss decided this plane is my new home, so I’d better not die before I find a way off it.

Her wings flapped awkwardly as she flew along, demonic instincts hampered by centuries of disuse from living in close confines—every day dedicated to servicing an endless line of Mother’s customers. The brief flares of pleasure came further and further apart, and required more extreme efforts to reach, yet always left the same cold emptiness behind.

That hollowness now mingled with icy blades of fear skating along her spine with the same delicacy that a howler’s fangs ripped flesh.

A tentacle raised from the water and whistled through the air as it swung towards her. With flight so awkward, she desperately tried the power she’d never managed within the brothel’s walls. A transparent pane released her twenty metres higher just before the suckers would have slapped against her thighs.

“Nice work, Klipyl.”

Switching direction, she lofted higher and tossed in more uses of the power she barely understood. The jumps were awkward at first, but smoothed out to let her skip ahead of whatever danger lurked beneath the crimson froth. As she counted out the time, the days rolled by, and the score gradually climbed into the hundreds before she lost count and, with a huff, set it aside. It wasn’t until boredom once again joined her continual appetite in demanding something more that she took up the count again. A sharp hardening within her flesh’s abyssal heat signalled when a demonic shard formed.  

A year has gone by? Is there any land here at all? I’m so empty, but I don’t want to die.

With nothing else to do, she returned to the start and dipped a hand between her legs to work her folds to the beat as she flew. Weeks slipped by with still no shore in sight, she gave up counting again and travelled silently across the seemingly endless expanse. After an indeterminable time, she came out of a jump straight into a black circle that grabbed her from the sky before she could get clear. The inky blackness spat her into a tunnel with a mirrored finish that sprayed a rainbow across her. In the distance, there was a pinprick of white light. She had no control over her passage through the tunnel, but it seemed faster than she’d managed flying above the waves.

The absence of the collar that she’d worn since birth was the first thing she noticed. She stroked her white throat, wondering when it had disappeared; its skintight fit had long faded from her awareness. Her fingertips played with her ebony locks before they traced the lines of her throat down to her collarbone, and from there her path of examination led her to check out her now plump breasts. She cupped them and confirmed their sensitivity before peals of edged laughter bubbled out. The endless agonies within the fire seemed a steep price for a body change that shapeshifting could give her whenever she wanted. The longer fangs she now possessed reflected off the tunnel and drew her attention to the sharper cheekbones and narrow lines of her face, and longer claws that extended from the edges of her folded wings.

You could cut yourself on my cheekbones now. I’m stacked and gorgeous, all for an endless agony.

Klipyl shuddered as memories of swimming through the roiling spiritual inferno that ascension had involved came flooding back.

I just wanted to get out of my room. If I had wished for that much pain, I could have....

Caught in the memory, the white light hit without warning and spat her into a neat grey stone chamber without an exit. She’d landed on her feet in nested twin silver circles with a few runes scattered erratically between the inner and outer circles. The inner circle was three metres across, and the mana within it flowed like a smooth stream surrounding her in endless loops.

Well, I’ll be a dretch cum sock. Why would someone summon me? How did they even get my name?

Beyond the outer circle, a white-skinned elf clad in pale blue from collar to toe; the soft colour made his crimson hair pop. His attire was a neat set of well-tailored clothing, boots, pants, a shirt, and a coat, with one arm sleeve folded up and pinned a hand width below shoulder level. An odd muscle twitch thrummed on the right side of his throat, and she heard a wet drumming sound coming from his chest that kept the same rhythm.

“You are not what I was expecting.”

Though the words weren’t in any language that Klipyl knew, her exposure to thousands of abyssal dialects had stretched her succubus’ ability to understand any spoken tongue.

Klipyl plopped to the ground and tucked both feet under her right thigh to tilt her legs in a demure pose that hid her nether lips from immediate view. It gave a coy impression that some customers had enjoyed. “I thought you needed a name to summon a demon.”

Her reply in abyssal caused the elf to grimace, though the drum within him kept the exact timing.

“The spell I cast can only draw one specific type of demon, and it has to be within a particular strength range. There is no point bluffing about your might.”

“You didn’t know what to expect when summoning a succubus?” Klipyl laughed. “Are you sure you’re right in the head? Summoning a demon is dangerous.”

“You’re a demoness. Should you be warning me you’re dangerous?”

Klipyl giggled and flexed her wings, banging them against the interior of the barrier. “I’m hardly dangerous. I’m a whore. That’s all my mother and the other brothel owners allowed me to be. She never trained me to fight or use my powers; instead, she taught me to spread my legs or bend in two for customers. Though I guess I’m dangerous if you’re at risk of me sucking your brains out through your dick without a summoning circle between us.”

His face went red to the tips of his ears.

“Why is your face changing colour?” Klipyl fluttered her eyelids and folded her arms to push up her breasts. “Do you like what you see, elf? Some clients liked to slip a cock or three between my boobs. If that’s what blows your load, that’s fine with me.”

He made an odd, strangled noise and put his hand to his mouth, and fear twisted a frozen thorn wreath inside Klipyl’s guts.

“I heard mortals die easily. You won’t die and leave me trapped in this circle, will you?”

“I’m not dying, but I have a list of requirements you must agree to for me to form a pact with you and release you from this circle. First, provide me with your name.”

An electric shock of excitement and fear raced across her body, and Klipyl jerked in surprise, yet it was excitement that caused her voice to rise higher. “You want to do WHAT?!”

“I need an infiltrator. While it would have been preferable for you to have suitable classes already, it is not an impossible obstacle to train you.”

“Do you always speak so fancy-like?”

His lips thinned into a tight line, the minor shift dissolving the softness she’d seen in his gaze. “I believe you’re trying to change the subject. State your name, demoness, or would you prefer to return to the plane I drew you from?”

“Klipyl.”

A translucent orb appeared and hovered at her shoulder. “Klipyl. This is a test of your name.”

As the words sounded from the orb, the elf relaxed and drew out a glowing slate of glass with some script written on it. He set it hovering in the air before him, and slid a fingertip up the middle of its surface, causing the words at the bottom to flow up the slate and new ones to appear in their place.

Their text is all flowing and sweet like a succubus’s curves, not jagged and spiky like abyssal script. Is that a magical scroll?

“First condition, you agree never to attack me either directly or through the use of any objects, situational conditions, or poisons.”

There goes me leaning against a statue.

“I do. Can you do me now?”

“Second, you will not encourage, manipulate or control others to use physical or magical violence against me.”

Klipyl waved a hand dismissively. “Okay. Are we done yet? My cunt is feeling empty.”

And so it went on until Klipyl couldn’t help but yawn in boredom. “Can we get to the sex now?”

He continued reciting more conditions, only pausing for her agreement, until one of them dug at the hollowness in her abdomen.

“Wait, no sex with you? Who do I get to fuck around this place?”

“That is not your purpose here.” Lines creased his until-now smooth brow, above the high arch of his eyebrows.

“You clearly don’t understand what it feels like for a succubus to go without sex.” Klipyl rose and waved her arms out wide, only to smack her fingertips against the barrier. Hissing, she pulled her arms in tight before her. “By a balor’s bouncing balls, that hurts.”

“I understand carnal craving is a constant that no succubus can ever satisfy. Thus, going without will leave you in the same state as you will be between momentary distractions.”

“What do you count as sex?”

His eyes narrowed. “When a male genital penetrates any orifice.”

What a narrow perspective. However, I mustn’t be too eager.

“You’re going to insist on that condition?”

“Yes, indulging in your proclivity for sexual congress would leave lingering traces that the devices I will provide to conceal your nature will not conceal.”

Klipyl frowned. “What does that verbose nonsense even mean?”

“When a succubus has sex, she leaves an energy signature on her victim that stays around, so I can’t afford your promiscuity.”

“Victim? That’s hardly fair; it’s not like they don’t get to dip their wick, blow their load, or whatever euphemism you care to use, oh, verbose master of magic.”

“Do you want to go back?” He repeated the clause, and Klipyl pouted. “Fine.”

With her agreement, he continued through his two hundred seventy-seven conditions and stopped only when he received her agreement to the last. “Do you have questions?”

“What do I get out of this?”

“Training to gain classes, and some magical infiltration devices upon successful completion of my goals related to summoning you.”

“How long do you expect me to spend serving you?”

“If your part takes longer than a year, my goals will have failed, and you’ll receive no reward beyond time on the material plane. As a succubus, you have all the core essentials you need for your role in them.”

“What are those? You’ve blocked me from fucking anyone to death or even getting some quick relief.”

“Your ability to shapeshift and your telepathy. The infiltration work I need you to undertake is listening in the right places; the devices will assist you in remaining unnoticed. Do you agree now to form a pact bound by all the henceforth agreed terms?”

Klipyl sighed. “I agree.”

The mana in the circle collapsed inwards, lines of black script forming across her alabaster-white skin, spiralling around her torso and limbs. Klipyl felt it clamp around her tighter than a lamia’s tail had once clamped around her in their orgasmic convulsion. As quickly as it had started, the pressure stopped, and the black lines were gone.

“Try to strike me.”

Klipyl’s claws grew as she swung for his face, only to drop to her knees, screaming in pain. A liquid agony that mimicked the ascension fires through Klipyl’s veins, dropping her screaming to her knees, and the elf flinched away wide-eyed.

“Stop.”

The agony shut off as if someone had snuffed out a living thing clawing inside her.

“You told me to hit you.”

“I didn’t expect such an extreme reaction. The binding will cause you to re-experience the most painful event of your existence any time you attempt to break a clause. I wanted you to experience the punishment, so you’d know in advance what you’d suffer for breaking your word.”

“Why?”

“I’ve read that demons won’t take anyone at their word, so I thought it best you knew the consequences.”

Klipyl rubbed her hands across her stomach, trying to calm her twitching muscles. “Could I get all those clauses in writing, so I don’t forget them?”

He drew a set of grey clothing and boots out of thin air and set them before her. An image of a pale elf with black hair and green swirls across her features showed between them. “Take on this appearance and don the clothing.”

“I’ve never worn clothes. How do you put them on?” Klipyl transformed to match the elven image, and his face reddened again. “And what do I call you?”

“You hold the pants at the top, and put one leg in at a time, then tighten the cord at their waist until they feel snug.”

“Should I call you ‘Master talks a lot and doesn’t say much’? I could just scream ‘Master, oh Master, do me’ any time I need to tell you something?”

He frowned, and a sleek silver bipedal figure suddenly appeared beside him. 

The metallic figure looked between them. “Master Faisal, in what room should I quarter your new guest?”

Why didn’t he tell me his name himself? Is it some weird wizard fetish? I’ve heard of golems, but not ones that could talk. He immediately tested a spell using my name. Is that the reason he didn’t say it himself?

“Servant, not guest.”

“Very well, sir.” The golem crouched to reach for the clothing, but Klipyl snatched them up first and clutched them to her chest.

“Mine.”

Juggling the clothing, Klipyl ended up dropping the boots, and the golem snatched them as they slipped free. With embarrassed hints from Faisal, she eventually got herself appropriately dressed and the knee-high boots laced up. With everything in place, including the weird, small garments he’d provided to go beneath her clothes, Faisal sighed and retrieved a prism from his coat pocket. As he lifted it level with Klipyl’s eyes, it flashed blue, and the local elven tongue washed into her mind. Along with it came their recent history and a host of mortal concepts.

As she recovered from the rush, Faisal placed a dark metal amulet around her neck and tucked the engraved disk inside her shirt. “You are not to leave the tower through any means unless you are wearing this amulet. It will prevent the local wards from detecting you, as no one can know a demoness is here.”

Klipyl looked around at the featureless grey stone walls. “What tower? There isn’t even a door, and I won’t transport myself blind.”

All three of them reappeared at the bottom of a silvery cylinder a hundred metres across that rose for a kilometre above them. At ground level, there were eight semi-translucent doors evenly spaced out along the wall of the tube. A winding staircase started between two doors and ascended to the heights with platforms spread along its course.

Klipyl waved towards the heights. “Do you live here alone?”

“You’ll easily learn about this place and me, so there is no point hiding it. I am the guardian of the western perimeter of Halarzar’s dome. We are at the core of a support tower that spans half a kilometre. Though you will not have access to most chambers, be careful which exit you use from the tower, as some lead to the dome’s exterior. A simple rule of thumb is not to use any door that is solid metal.”

“What’s wrong with the exterior?”

“We’ll fly to the top and look beyond the energy barrier so that you can see for yourself.”

“I can’t fly without my wings out.”

Faisal’s brows lifted, and a glimmer flickered in his gaze. “Are you sure about that? Your wings aren’t big enough to support your body weight, so there is certainly a magical power involved in your ability to fly.”

“What do you mean?”

“Even though I expected you to know nothing of my world, I can’t believe I’m educating a demoness. Among the concepts that were in the neural implant for language would be a term referred to as lift force.”

Images of wings—natural and mechanical—flashed in her mind, and Klipyl blinked rapidly before she could start to deny it. “You have devices that let you fly?”

He maintained a blank expression and began lecturing in a monotone drone. “Flight spells once cast simply require the recipient to will themselves to move about the air. Why don’t you try that? Or close your eyes and will your body to become lighter until your feet leave the ground.”

After a bit of experimenting with other mental games, Klipyl found herself a body length above the ground, still in the elven form.

Faisal rose higher, flying ahead of her up the centre of the shaft, and Klipyl awkwardly flew after him, slowly smoothing out her control of a power she’d possessed for centuries.

Memories of angry words and the pain of her mother’s claws ripping into her wings and back caused her to shudder and flinch repeatedly in mid-air, but with her gaze fixed on Faisal, she continued upwards.

When she landed on the platform at the top of the stairs, there was a three-metre ladder up to a round hatch in the ceiling. With only one arm, Faisal maintained his spell and floated to it; a strange waggle of his long fingers caused it to slide aside. Once they passed through that hatch, they had a twenty-metre ascent before they emerged through another hatch. They emerged onto a smooth metal plate half a kilometre across, and featureless except for the hatch at her feet.

The sky directly above them was a shimmering sapphire energy field. The barrier started at the edge of the platform to her right and stretched off in the distance beyond what she could make out. On the same side of the barrier as themselves was a sea of greenery, amid which stood isolated buildings. Klipyl spun about and found that behind her, the same energy barrier approached the tower and met up along the same edge.

“While your eyes can’t tell, the barrier curves inwards high above us until it reaches a central point supported by all the towers.”

“What sort of spell maintains that barrier?”

“The barrier is a product of our ancestors’ science, though I only included the basic terms in the neural implant. Most of the population has allowed itself to fall into ignorance, so you won’t be the only one who knows next to nothing about it. Go to the edge of the tower and look beyond it. The barrier will repel you before you get too close, so you won’t be able to fall off the edge.”

Beyond the barrier lay an arid wasteland of broken stone. Scattered across the fractured landscape, she saw glowing points of light with various-sized rocks orbiting them, drifting about erratically.

“Wow, I’ve seen prettier demon organs. What did you do to your world?”

“This isn’t our home planet. The colonist commander dropped Halarzar’s dome from orbit, and it is the only reason we can survive on this planet.” Klipyl looked curiously at the barrier, and his gaze narrowed. “If you had been paying attention to the conditions that you agreed to, I mentioned the dome twice.”

“Yeah, could I get them in writing? I’ll admit I got bored and knew I wasn’t getting out unless I agreed, so I didn’t see any point in refusing. I figured agreeing was better than being stuck in a spot tinier than my old room with only my fingers and tail for company.”

“You’d best pay more attention when I have you listen to thoughts. I’ll point out the initial observation locations from here, and then take you to a training room,” Faisal said firmly. He turned on his heel and walked towards the opposite side of the tower. Klipyl followed.