by J. Stone
Gloomport was a city full of criminals and rogues. There was no law or order beyond getting away with what you could. It was who you knew and how you were connected that determined an individual’s place in the city. Gangs controlled everything, and there was no true leadership beyond them.
Thinking of where the city was on a map, Gloomport was farther away from her home than she would have liked. The subterranean city was far to the southeast, along the coast there. The best path would be to get transport to Elythine and then go north to her home. This presented a problem, because coin was king in Gloomport, and Ruby had nothing to trade. Getting out of the city might be just as difficult as anything she’d faced as of yet. Swimming was out of the question, as the edge of the city was littered with jagged rocks protruding up from the surface, and the tide would crush them against those rocks before they could make it to land. What she really needed was a ship and crew.
Walking into the city, Ruby began to ponder how she was going to make that happen. Despite her ghastly appearance and Scarlett’s demonic form, the people they passed by didn’t really pay them the attention the princess would have expected. Though the city had a heavy criminal nature to it, that didn’t mean that there weren’t typical civilians there. She passed by small shops and storefronts like she would have seen in Lavidia. Everything about them seemed very normal, and not quite what she suspected the dark city would contain.
Shattering the momentary comfort, a young woman’s shrill scream echoed through the streets. No one walking by paid it any notice, continuing with their own lives and ignoring her calls. The girl cried out again in protest to something.
“What is that?” Scarlett asked the princess.
“I’m not sure,” Ruby replied. “But I don’t like it.”
She followed the loud calls into an alleyway behind a tailor’s shop, where she found a man dressed in dyed red leathers raping a young woman against a pile of stacked crates. The girl pleaded for him to stop, but her cries were only met with vicious thrusts. When she still wouldn’t be silent, the man smacked her across the face, splattering the blood from her nose against the wood of the boxes and bricks of the building.
Rage seethed through the princess like she had never felt before. Her body burned inside. The poison, which she had held in check, began to drip once more from her mouth, and not only from there. It oozed from each of her eyes, out her nose, from her hairline and ears. It was everywhere, and it was a color darker than she had ever produced before.
Ruby was behind him, before she even realized she had moved. She placed one hand on his shoulder, and with strength she didn’t know she had, she threw him off the young girl. The rapist landed in a pile of discarded trash beside a door leading into the shop. He seemed more confused by the interruption than anything else.
Looking up at the princess’ oozing form, he asked, “What… are you?”
She dripped the sludge onto one of her hands and walked over to him. Grabbing the man’s still erect member, Ruby spit at him, “I’m the poison princess!”
She let go of him, as the man screamed in horror and grabbed himself. Ruby watched as the flesh grew dark and rapidly decomposed. That which had marked him as a man rotted off and fell to the ground. Despite the horrors happening to him, the rapist grabbed what was left of it and somehow managed to get up and flee the alleyway.
Ruby turned back and tried to calm herself. Her breathing slowed, and soon, the poison ceased dripping from her various orifices. Scarlett walked up to her, brandishing a tissue from seemingly out of nowhere and wiped the sludge from the princess’ face. Once she was done, it vanished similarly. At that point, the girl who had been attacked stood, having covered herself back up.
“Why did you do that?” the girl demanded angrily, tears streaking down her face. “Why couldn’t you just leave it alone?”
Ruby looked over at the woman. “What are you talking about? I had to do something.”
“Do you not know who that was?” the girl asked.
“Does it matter? He got what he deserved.”
“He was a member of the Underlaw. He’s going to have us all killed now.”
“What is the Underlaw?” Scarlett asked.
“You’re kidding,” the young woman said.
Ruby and her horned servant exchanged nonplussed glances.
“You’re not kidding,” she stated.
“Who are they?” Ruby asked.
“You’re not from around here, are you? Can’t imagine how you’d end up in Gloomport without knowing. They take what they want. Anyone who stands in their way, dies. I didn’t want him to…” she looked back to where she had been assaulted. “But it was better than them doing it anyway and then killing my whole family afterward. You’ve ruined that. Now, they’re going to kill us.”
“I…” Ruby started.
“There is one rule in Gloomport!” the girl screamed. “Keep to yourself!” She walked forward, past the princess and Scarlett and entered the tailor shop.
Ruby turned and watched the girl go inside, to see an older man comfort her. The princess had to assume that he was her father, and that he knew what was happening in the alley. What kind of city was this where a father stood by while his daughter was raped? Who were these men called the Underlaw that ruled with such fear? Ruby was not content to sit idly by and watch them destroy lives like that. She had been given power in the form of her poison, and it would be irresponsible to let it go to waste.
The princess followed the girl into the tailor shop and asked, “They’ll be coming back?”
The young girl wiped the tears from her eyes and turned around. “What?”
“You said they would kill your family,” Ruby explained. “I take that to mean that this Underlaw will return. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Then we will stay. I’ll make sure you’re safe.”
“You can’t make us safe. Don’t you understand? No one stands against them. This city is theirs.”
“Not anymore,” Ruby said. “I’m changing the way this works.”
“You really think you can stand against them?”
“I do.”
“Then you’re a fool.” The young girl stormed up the stairs of the shop and slammed a door. Through the ceiling, her cries could still be heard beneath.
“She’s not wrong,” the older man said before sitting down in a creaky old chair. “It is a fool’s errand to resist the Underlaw.”
“Why? What will they do?”
The old man stared blankly at the racks of clothes in his store. “They’ll kill us all.”
Ruby could see that the man was not going to be too interested in conversation. She looked at the contents of the store and then down at herself. She had gotten so used to the hardened poison covering her bare skin, that she forgot she was essentially naked.
“What was your name?” Ruby asked the man.
“Luther.” He pointed upstairs, his eyes remaining transfixed on the nothingness in front of him. “Daughter’s name is Clare.”
“Luther, could I ask you for one of your dresses?”
The man waved his hand dismissively, indicating that he did not care at all.
“Thank you.”
Ruby began to look through the racks of clothes, while Scarlett followed her.
“Why did you do that?” the demon asked her.
“What?”
“Save that girl. Offer to help them. Why do you concern yourself with their troubles? You have your own problems to confront.”
“I can’t walk away from injustice,” Ruby explained. “This place is wrong, and I have to put it right.”
“The world’s problems aren’t yours, my princess. It is alright if you let some go.”
“Not this one. I can repair this.”
“Do you understand the cost?”
“What is your meaning?”
“That doesn’t matter,” Scarlett said.
Ruby frowned and pulled a da
rk purple dress from the rack. She walked back to the man, still seated in his chair.
“Luther, is there somewhere I could get cleaned up?”
He pointed to a doorway.
“Thank you for your generosity, Luther.”
The man offered little more than a grunt.
Ruby began to walk toward the room, when Scarlett asked, “Will you need a hand, my princess?”
“Stay here and keep them safe,” she replied.
“Are you absolutely sure I can’t help you get clean? Give you a proper lather?” Scarlett called after her one more time.
“Stay here. Watch after them.”
“Rats.”
“Maybe next time,” Ruby said turning back to Scarlett with a raised eyebrow, before she closed the door. “Maybe next time? Why did I say that?” she whispered to herself frantically. She was sexually attracted to a demon from the nether realm. Scarlett, her seductress, was growing closer to her with each passing day, and she didn’t think she could resist her for much longer. She didn’t think she wanted to anymore. She was going to have to admit that to herself sooner or later, but it wasn't only that.
Ruby was starting to lose herself in the persona that she had adopted, this poison princess. She had attacked a man and turned his manhood into a rotting, festering mass of disgusting flesh, and then guaranteed the safety of a pair of strangers being threatened by a violent gang. Who had she become? Could she actually stop what was coming for this innocent tailor and his daughter? Was the poison princess enough to protect them? She didn’t know, but there was a certain level of confidence building inside her.
Ignoring all of that, the princess laid out the dress on a table and then stepped inside the cold water of a wooden tub situated near the center of the room. Bending over in the water, Ruby cupped the water and rinsed it over her skin. She had to scrape and scrub fairly rigorously to get some of the encrusted poison off of her, but after a short while, she got to a point where she was feeling clean enough to put on the new dress. Stepping out of the dirty, black water, Ruby found a towel and dried herself off.
She picked up the dress from the table and examined it. The fabric was certainly of a lower quality than that which she was used to in the castle, but she didn’t mind. Unlike Scarlett and her predilection for nudity, Ruby felt that any clothes would be a comfort at that point. The dress was dark purple with black stitching at the intersections of fabric and looked nice enough. The strings at the back proved difficult to tie herself, so she opened the door and called for Scarlett to give her a hand.
There was no response, so she went out to find what had happened. The princess found Luther still seated in his chair, and his disposition was the same.
“Luther? Where is Scarlett?”
“The other? She’s gone out.”
“What?” Ruby asked. “Where did she go?”
“Didn’t say. Said that thing…” He pointed to Sniggle. “…would protect us while she was out.”
Ruby scoffed, “That’ll be the day.”
Chapter 14. Spiders and Deceit
In a way, Gloomport reminded Scarlett of the nether realm. Of her home. Dark. Dirty. Ruled by the strong. She knew she could fit in there for however long she and her princess would be there. It was a place where you took what you could get and damn those that got in the way. The demon didn’t understand why Ruby wanted to save those people from their own choices, but she also realized she wasn’t going to change her princess’ mind on the matter. Only time and tragedy would do that, and they would surely change her by the end. She looked forward to the woman she would inevitably become, but in the meantime, she had to make sure that Ruby made it out of Gloomport alive.
That meant making sure her princess had the poison she needed. If the Underlaw were as much of a threat as the tailor’s daughter seemed to indicate, Ruby would be putting herself in a dangerous position and likely hurting herself in the process. Scarlett therefore would need to be there to mend those wounds, so she had left the shop in search of a source of poison.
The demon was new to Nabiria, but if Gloomport was anything like other towns in Ruby’s world, she suspected that there was an alchemist of some sort nearby. The craft had the vaguest touches of magic in its work, so she understood the profession’s desire. Alchemy was a way for those without an inherent ability to shape magic, to still touch greatness. It was weak, of that, she had no doubt, but in its own way, it was still admirable and certainly still useful. Something about humanity’s desire to always reach farther than their own grasp was intriguing to her. Amusing if nothing else anyway.
Her princess, on the other hand, had no limitation. That was one of the reasons that Scarlett was so attracted to her. Why she chose her to bond with. She would know greatness, and she would reach it thanks to the infinite darkness brewing inside her soul. It was beautiful for the demon to witness.
Scarlett made her way to a part of town where storefronts like Luther’s lined the street. Why the tailor hadn’t set up shop there, she didn’t know. Walking down the street, she inspected each of the business’ signs hanging above the doors, in the windows, or staked in the ground outside in search of one advertising alchemical compounds. There was a gambling house called the Weighted Die, a bar by the name of the Briny Barrel, and an inn called the Whispering Walls. The names had such color. The demon quite liked this place. Dark, dreary and colorful all at the same time. She kept walking and found what she had searched for in the form of a shop called the Copper Goblet.
The demon twisted the metal knob and opened the creaking door, causing a bell overhead to chime. The shop’s smell was incredibly musty and complicated, as various roaming chemical aromas were combined in her nostrils. She’d only been in Nabiria for a short time, and never before had she come across any smells so amazing, and to have them all in one place made it even more overwhelming. If her home were to have had a smell, she thought it would be just like that little shop in the dimly lit town carved into the cove of a great mountain.
As the name of the shop suggested, there was a large copper goblet situated at the center of the room, surrounded by a plethora of flowers, liquids sealed in glass tubes, animal body parts, and arcane artifacts even her demonic eyes couldn’t identify.
An older woman sat behind the counter of the shop, slowly turning the pages of an old tome, licking her fingers between each page flip. Her hair had greyed, and it was woven into braids that fell to either side of her head and rested on her shoulders. She wore a burgundy dress with a little black coat over the top. Layers of jewelry hung around her neck, glittering and reflecting the light of the candles that were lit around the edges of the room.
Scarlett approached the old woman at the counter and began to ask something, but the shop owner raised a wrinkled finger up to silence her. The old woman turned the page of her tome, while maintaining the finger in the air. The demon did not like being made to wait. She had bided her time long enough in the nether realm, and she now found her time too valuable to be wasted. The elderly shop owner turned the pages in her book two more times before finally looking up at Scarlett. When she did, there was a glint in her eye that made the demon think, she’d recognized Scarlett for what she was. That didn’t mean she was going to say anything. The tailor and his daughter had indicated that the people in Gloomport kept their mouths shut, when they saw something that didn’t affect them. The old woman had thus far followed that philosophy as well.
“Can I help you?” she asked, finally putting her finger down. The woman then grabbed a long black feather, placed it at the center of the book’s crease to mark her place, and closed it shut.
“Poison,” Scarlett replied. “I need poison.”
“What does a--” The old woman stopped herself a moment before rephrasing. “What do you need with poison?”
“My needs are my own, which I suggest you remember.”
“I merely wish to assess your requirements, so that I can provide you with the toxin suited best f
or that purpose,” the old woman said with a dry smile the demon didn’t appreciate.
Scarlett shook her head. “That doesn’t matter. As strong as you can manage, as deadly as you can concoct.”
“It is death you seek then? I can create such an item, but what do you have to exchange?”
The demon raised an eyebrow. The elderly shop owner was up to something. “Is there something you have in mind, crone?”
“You look like an individual who has access to much…” she looked up to Scarlett’s horns. “Power.”
The demon smiled. She knew where the woman was going. She would take full advantage. “Are you quite sure you want to deal with me?”
“Are you willing or not?” the old woman asked with dead eyes.
Scarlett shrugged her shoulders. “Fine. What is it you want?”
“Youth.”
“Youth? Is that all?”
“I imagine it matters little to a timeless thing such as you, but for a mortal, it is everything.”
Scarlett rolled her eyes. “Fine. It is your choice, after all.”
The horned demon reached out and grabbed the woman’s wrist, twisting it and holding it down against the counter. The woman squirmed at the pain, but Scarlett held up a single finger on her other hand, indicating for the crone to wait. The red polished fingernail extended out into a sharp point, and she took it and pricked the elderly woman’s index finger, causing blood to flow out and pool there. Scarlett then let go of the woman’s wrist and retrieved a furled scroll from the absence of space. She placed it on the counter and unrolled it, holding it there in display.
“Sign it, and we shall have an accord,” she explained coldly.
“There are no terms,” she protested.
“The terms have already been negotiated. Youth for poison.”
The elderly woman’s eyes narrowed to slits, but suspicions or otherwise, she looked down at the parchment and scraped her bloody finger along the rough paper, signing her name. Scarlett then took the vellum and furled it back up before tucking it away where she had retrieved it from.
