With his ten new charges in tow, King Aggramor excused himself back to the Captial. He had a lot to do, getting them settled in, giving them names, calming them down, stopping them from rushing to the tower the moment they saw it in the distance. The little things new Demon parents go through when Cain is involved.
A few demons who didn't need much sleep saw him leave, but only one of them was of interest to Cain today.
"Hey Carnage, have I got a surprise for you." He called out, flying over to the large red demon, who was polishing the claws at the tips of his wings.
"If it's not killing, I'm not interested." Carnage answered, shooing the flying nuisance away.
"Even if I made ten new Blood Dancers and gave them your combat style to play with while they fight their way up from level one?" Cain asked.
"Okay, I am listening. But why would they be level one Demons? You're a level 400 Mythic being." Carnage asked.
"They're not a summoned creature, I created them and then released them to King Aggramor to raise up and rebuild the Blood Dancer bloodline. They're actual demon children, who know nothing at all of this world and could use a properly wrathful influence, who understands the combat style I granted them." Cain's speech seemed to be having some effect on the big demon, so he continued with the final blow he was certain would send Carnage back to the Capital, looking for the children.
"The first thing they asked for was a two-handed ax with a serrated edge." At Cain's words, Carnage got a sweet look on his face and placed both hands over his heart.
"Oh, those precious darlings. A serrated Ax isn't easy to use, I will have to go and train them myself. They were with the King, you said?"
Cain nodded. "They were when they left. He was going to get them weapons and ice cream."
Carnage flew off the moment he had his confirmation, disappearing through the travel circle in an instant while the rest of the camp was slowly starting to wake up and shake off their night of revelry.
[Any word on more attacks?] Cain asked Nila, knowing at least one clone of her would be awake.
[Nothing yet. I think they might be taking a few days to regroup and plan after their attack on the Demons failed. It will have given them the impression that their intelligence on the Central Continent is incorrect.] Nila suggested.
[Keep in contact then. I'm sure they have at least one more force on the way somewhere, we just need to find out where they are headed.] Cain informed her, then took a good look around the Demon army again.
They had plenty of numbers and were well-trained. They also didn't seem to lack anything, except their King and one Commander, so they should be fine for now. The presence of all the Demon Generals was less for organization purposes and more for the absolute power that they brought to the battlefield.
Plague Mother seemed to be in an exceptionally good mood this morning, feeding her summoned mummy fruit juice and bouncing it on her knee while the Plague Lord gave the little mummy an envious look, cursing his huge body.
The Plague Lord was currently engaged in a game of Go with the Blighted Paladin, who was much better at the game than he was, controlling almost the entire board, while the big demon made random guesses as to where he should place his piece next. Both nodded politely when Cain approached, using the motion to alert their Plague Mother to visitors.
"Good morning. I just thought I should let you know that the King and Carnage have headed back to the Capital. I created some new Blood Dancer children for them, so they might be busy for a while, and Record Keeper seems to be missing at the moment, or at least invisible, so I wanted to let you know that the Wave Riders are just waiting on news from the coasts before we head out to deal with more of the Giants." Cain greeted the wizened plague demon.
"That is fine, I won't have any problem keeping this mob in line if we are attacked again. Record Keeper is searching the coastline for anything we might have missed, but he talked to some allies last night and learned that the attacks don't usually have more than one awakened fighter in them. We just got lucky, or unlucky as the case may be. The next one in our territory shouldn't be as bad."
Her smile set Cain at ease, assured that she did in fact have the skills to deal with large numbers of demons from multiple factions. With her here and Record Keeper on patrol, they shouldn't have too many issues if Cain was called away, so he gave her a polite nod and headed back to Queen Rose to see what was for breakfast. It would be a few hours until Cyrene was up, but Cain was sure the smell of food would help motivate her to get going this afternoon.
By the time Cain had breakfast finished, a very groggy Cyrene had joined him. It wasn't the smell of food that dragged her out of bed though, she had finally noticed that she was alone in the hammock and went looking for Cain. Now securely back around his waist, they were enjoying a bowl of oatmeal and fruit while they waited for news from the Wave Riders.
It might be news about the war plans, or news about the Giants being sighted on an attack approach towards another city, but so far neither bit of news had come to them.
It was a case of hurry up and wait. All they could do was stand by until something happened.
"The Lesser Watchers have started on the towers in Blood Sands Castle, the Beginner's Valley, Port Nefheim, and Landis City. They want to know if they should split up and put them in more places, or if they should stay near the towers and supervise?" Cyrene asked, knowing it would only take them a few days to get the buildings assembled and ready to go, using the smaller footprint of the one in the Demon Captial.
"Give them my apologies for putting them on babysitting duty. I need someone to make sure there isn't any trouble, and the Guild Members might not be enough without them. Plus, the others will want to head inside themselves and see what they can get." Cain told her, finally noticing that Cyrene was still in her nightgown.
"Want to take a quick nap while we wait? I had a few things to do this morning." Cain asked, standing to carry the sleepy Lamia to a hammock after he dropped the breakfast dishes in the sink to deal with in a few minutes.
"Mhmm, naps are good." Cyrene agreed, already half asleep again. Cain was going to have to do something about her attachment issues, she could barely sleep alone, but this world was desperately short on therapists.
