The Married Life Of Immortals

After leaving the volcano, it had taken almost a week before they encountered the next demon. The group had found a small camp, and a lone demon that had a number of bodies around him.

The demon had been feasting on the frozen corpses, but it looked like a dog with a bone that it couldn’t chew threw.

"You dare intrude on my meal!" the demon snarled, its voice thick with bloodlust, and a sword appeared in its hands.

Bane rolled his eyes, and then snapped his fingers, causing the swords to clatter to the ground as the demon's body dematerialized. While this was the first demon they had seen since leaving the mountain, Bane had grown accustomed to the silence, and wasn't ready for it to be ruined yet.

Satisfied with the results, Bane was about to start moving again, but a pair of hands tugged on each of his arms, making him look at Elexis and Nia. He had been surprised that both women had remained almost virtually silent the entire week, which had been nice, but now they were trying to stop him for something.

"What?"

"Why did you destroy that demon? Did you forget about us?" Elexis asked in a dry voice that sounded tired.

Bane smacked the base of his hand into his forehead, letting out a groan. "Sorry. I did forget about that, but I can dethaw some of the demons around here, if you are okay with that?"

Elexis let out a sigh and nodded, rubbing her arms, and Nia smiled.

"Thank you," Elexis said, still rubbing her arms, and Bane nodded.

Within moments, Bane had not only dethawed 4 demons, but also made a large fire for the girls to gather around. After he was done, Bane kicked over a frost colored tree, then dragged it to the fire to sit on. As he did, both women drug their meals over to sit on either side of him. Bane could have told them to piss off, but the women had actually remained silent the entire trip so far, so he let them stay close.

Though Bane was still truthfully having trouble listening to the whole process, he was growing more resilient with each meal. He had hoped it would get easier to watch, but deadening his senses to this type of thing was not an overnight process. 

Still, Bane watches the entire time, refusing to look away. No matter how gross it was, it was nothing compared to watching Princess Misery eat all the rotten and decaying demons.

"My bad," Bane muttered as he poked the fire that he had created magically, making the flame bend as he did. "I forgot that you two need to eat."

Elexis stopped eating, and looked at Bane with a strange look. "We are your servants, for lack of a better term. If you wish for us to eat, we will. If you don’t wish for it, we will not."

Bane gave her a sideways glance. "And the silence? While I do love it, you wouldn't shut up before this, so I am curious what sealed your lips when my words never seemed to have any effect before this?"

Elexis gave Bane a strained look, and then gestured around them, and then finished her mouthful of demon. "Fear is a powerful deterrent. I had assumed that you might not like killing females, but what you did to Zerynthia made me reconsider things. We both have decided that while we are still stuck in this winter hellscape, we will remain silent and let you have your time of peace like you asked."

Nia nodded along until Elexis was done. "You froze everything! If we made you mad, neither of us would have made it out of this place alive!"

"I didn't mean to freeze everything, but that spell went a hell of a lot further than I could have ever imagined. I didn't realize that the additional 3300 spell circles would increase the range so dramatically," Bane sighed, looking around at the frozen wasteland that surrounded them.

The extent of his magic had surprised everyone, even Bane. While the spell was amazing, it had annoyed him because he had learned very quickly not all magic could just be reversed. After freezing everything, there was no easy way to unthaw it all short of burning everything, but even that wasn’t a sure move with the regrowth rate of the ice because of the spell.

'You created a new spell essentially, but because it was so complicated, there is a very good chance that it would gain other properties. One of those seems to be regrowth, so as long as the mountain where Zerynthia is stays frozen, and there is demonic energy, this ice will remain,' Onyx explained and Bane sighed, wondering just how long they actually had until that witch of a phoenix broke free.

'Any idea how much longer we have silence?' Bane asked internally, and Onyx's reply came faster than Bane could have expected.

'Less than an hour at best, but maybe sooner. While you are far away, I have been monitoring her since we left.'

'Really? I thought you were busy with my body?'

'I was, but there is very little to do at the moment since you are no longer in Dominion Online currently. The moment that you return, I have something planned, but I have things going... Looks like my estimation was slightly off. Zerynthia just broke from her binding.'

At the same time, Nia shouted in surprise, and pointed south in the direction they had come from. Bane looked, and then groaned as he saw the tiny red pillar in the distance.

"She is out already?" Elexis asked before going back to chew on the legs she had been working on.

Bane shrugged. "It has been a week, meaning we got more quiet time than I assumed," he explained, but then stretched. "What are the chances that she just doesn't bother to come chasing after me?"

Elexis gave him a look, and Bane sighed. "Yeah, I figured."

"You did destroy her ring," Nia added, and Bane rolled his eyes as he stood up and walked away from the fire.