There’s a certain kind of architectural plague that seeps across the multiverse much like a bad case of rot, eating away at the foundations of aesthetic complexity and replacing it with the most simplistic, inhumane designs imaginable. An infection usually manifests when a burnt-out architect becomes weary of designing pointed arches, vaulted ceilings, colonnades and little angel statues, those accoutrements of the more seasoned architectural styles, and instead opts for simple geometric shapes, harsh angles and an utter lack of decoration or color. “You see,” says the weary architect, “the building is not unfinished. Those pipes and wires are exposed by DESIGN.” And thus is Brutalism born.

This tyranny of geometry has consumed many cities across many universes, once-habitable metropolises such as Eldrest Prime, New Fantaghast, Funworld Apocalypse-17 and Toronto. Nestled very near the southern border of Saimonica and the Anti-Demon Wall was another such example of Brutalism… the fortress-town of Lyzikanth.

The architect who designed Lyzikanth for the Saimonican Army opted for the simplest solution imaginable: plopping a circle down on the map to represent a defensive wall and overlaying it with a grid to represent streets. All the buildings were rectangular facades, constructed of rammed earth molded by elemental mages, and very sparsely decorated. The effect was not unlike a series of brownish dominoes, all lined up in perfect rows and columns.

Of course, while city planners might prefer everything neat and tidy, sentient life is rather infamous for coloring outside the lines. As Lyzikanth gathered a civilian population seeking to sell their services to bored, well-paid soldiers, the town grew beyond its walls with no particular attention paid to zoning laws. The result was a blobby, amorphous civilian-use district attached to the northern end of the town, causing the whole affair to resemble a cauliflower glued to a marble.

It was the cauliflower bit that Nyze and company now entered, the chaotic civilian outer district that was defended by nothing more than a few guard checkpoints. Infiltrating the monolithic fortress-town proper was far too risky, even with their magical disguises, but they could get up to their foul demonic deeds just fine in the outskirts. And what horrifying and unabashedly evil plot did our four villains set into motion after stabling their serpenthedes and entering poor, unsuspecting Lyzikanth?

Why, they went out for a nice lunch. After a few days of eating nothing but jerky and hardtack, can you blame them? There was this little eatery, very near the primary shopping street, that emitted such delicious meaty scents the four simply had to investigate. As a part of their mission, you understand.

“Good afternoon,” the young-ish waitress said, her head dipping in an unenthusiastic half-bow. “What can I get for you.” Normally one would expect that sentence to be punctuated by a question mark, but the waitress’ many grinding years in the service industry had sandblasted away such frivolous niceties from her speech.

“Can we start with an order of the cheese sticks?” Nyze asked. She was immaculately glamoured to look like a normal human woman with ordinary brown hair and eyes, and nary a snake tail or forked tongue in sight.

“And please add some ranch dressing on the side, in addition to the marinara!” Valex added excitedly. Her own glamour hid her fox ears and tail, and dyed her hair from its usual silvery white to a less conspicuous platinum blonde.

“And four waters, no ice,” Rixu added, sensibly. As the only human at the table, he required no glamour and just looked like plain ol’ Rixu, bestubbled and scowling.

The waitress scribbled something on her notepad. “Okay. And would the little girl like the kid’s menu?”

Silence blanketed the table, like snow after a blizzard, and everyone turned to stare at Metokai. The little baphomet’s glamour erased her horns, paws, pointed ears and goat legs, making her look entirely human... about four foot three of human, anyway.

Metokai forced her next sentence through gritted teeth, every word enunciated, every syllable drawn out.

“I am NOT a little girl.”

Indeed, she was not. Metokai hadn’t bothered making her glamour taller than her usual self, as spending too long in such a body would have caused dysmorphia, and thus rendered herself a human woman some foot and a half shorter than average. This was not the first time a confused human had assumed she was a child, and would not be the last; Metokai’s enraged reaction was the same every time.

“Uh…” the waitress said, raising an eyebrow. Upon closer inspection, she realized Metokai clearly had the face and body of a woman in her mid-thirties, only… much shorter. “Sorry, I guess.”

Metokai nodded. “Your apology is accepted. And yes, I will take the kid’s menu.”

Everyone pressed their lips together and averted their eyes, except for Nyze who struggled (and failed) to keep a smirk from crossing her face.

“What?!” Metokai said defensively. “The portions are smaller, and I have a small stomach! That’s the only reason!”

“Ri-iiiiight.” Nyze chuckled. “And not because the kid's meals come with a toy.”

Metokai huffed and puffed up her cheeks. “Certainly not.” Her glare was powerful enough to melt steel beams, but Nyze’s mischievous smile simply widened.

******

After that awkward but quite delicious lunch, the four demonic infiltrators began to take a tour of the city. They were on the lookout for an isolated property they could rent or buy, for the express purpose of establishing a forward covert base for the elven Whispers.

Valex, Rixu and Nyze were all plenty familiar with human towns, but Metokai’s eyes darted around wildly as she took in every new sight, sound and smell.

Lyzikanth’s outer district was a wild mishmash of construction, lean-tos and ranch-style houses and three-story warehouses all jumbled together like a bureaucrat’s nightmare. Large signs and loud criers advertised a wide variety of goods for sale, and soldiers and civilians hustled and bustled about on various errands. What drew Metokai’s attention the most, however, was the prevalence of shabbily-dressed folk on every corner, holding up signs that implored donation and charity.

Metokai stopped in front of one such beggar. His sign read, Injured my leg in the Army, can’t work. Please spare anything you can. The Gods bless your charity.

“Serpent,” Metokai whispered to Nyze, “why does the human government not help this man?”

“You don’t really need me to answer that, do you?” Nyze whispered back, shame twisting her stomach. “They won’t heal him because there’s no profit in it.”

“How vile…” Metokai muttered. She’d known from Nyze’s tale that human society charged exorbitant prices for healing services, but seeing it in person caused disgust at the injustice of the situation to well up inside her. Her eyes flashed teal as she activated her healthsight, studying the twisted muscles and malformed bone in the man’s bad leg. She hypothesized a prior fracture had been set poorly, resulting in the bone healing crooked. It was an injury that a good shaper mage could have fixed in a few moments, but the misfortunate soul couldn’t afford such luxury and was thus relegated to begging.

“Excuse me, sir,” Metokai said quietly, attracting the beggar’s attention. “I can heal your leg if you like.”

The man stared down at her with wide, tired, reddened eyes. “What?”

Metokai began to utter a shaping spell, her hands glowing teal. Nyze started to move forwards to stop her, but Rixu clamped her on the shoulder. “Wait,” he hissed.

“We’re supposed to be staying inconspicuous,” Nyze hissed right back.

“WAIT,” he hissed more loudly.

As the man watched in wonder, Metokai’s teal magic poured from her hands and into his leg. His crooked bones straightened themselves out, and his muscles regenerated to full vigor. When the mana dissipated, the startled man tenderly placed his full weight on his leg… and found, for the first time in years, it could support him fully without any pain.

“Your leg should now be returned to full health,” Metokai said. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a few unmarked gold pieces, pressing them into the man’s palm. “Here, purchase yourself a fresh meal and shelter.”

As Metokai turned to walk away, the man stared after her, tears streaming down his face. “Thank you…” he said weakly.

“Don’t mention it,” Metokai responded with a wave. The other three fell in behind her as she strode away.

“What was that about?” Nyze whispered loudly.

“I saw someone in trouble, and I helped,” Metokai responded matter-of-factly.

“We’re supposed to be keeping a low profile, though!” Nyze protested. “If you go around healing the sick and injured like some sort of messiah figure, the Church is going to notice.”

Metokai stopped walking and turned around, folding her arms over her chest and tapping her foot. “Then let them notice; I do not fear their pathetic soldiers or armies. If we turn our back on those who need our help, we’ve betrayed our values. That would make everything we are doing here meaningless, serpent.”

“I agree,” Rixu said, feeling a sudden kinship with the baphomet. “If someone needs help, we should help them.”

“I’m not arguing that point, it’s just…” Nyze said, her voice rising.

“SHHHHH!” Valex interrupted. She motioned the other three to get closer to her, then resumed talking in a low whisper. “Look, Metokai is right and so is Nyze. Let’s agree to meet in the middle. There’s only four of us, and Metokai is the only one who knows healing magic, so we’re not in a position to help and heal everyone. However, once we’ve established our base and set up a teleportation circle for the Whispers to come through, we can direct them to begin addressing the city’s poverty as part of their covert operation. It’s likely to serve their purposes anyway, earning goodwill among the town’s homeless population.”

The foxkin’s attempts at mediation succeeded, and Nyze and Metokai agreed to disagree. Still, there was a certain tension in the aftermath of the argument, a sticky and cloying thing that was totally opposite of their usual affectionate teasing. Valex and Rixu looked at each other apprehensively as the group continued their tour of the city in total silence.

******

“We’re just not finding anything good,” Metokai grumbled, her bitter mood souring the air.

They’d been searching around the city for several hours, paying special attention to darkened back alleyways and warehouses with leaky rooves, but found nothing that was isolated enough for their purposes. A few inquiries with merchants indicated that most of the property in the city was spoken for, usually by one of the larger merchant conglomerates, further reducing their chances of finding anything suitable.

“Ugh,” Nyze moaned. “Can’t we just dig a secret tunnel under the street and set up base there?”

“Doubtful,” Metokai responded, taking Nyze’s joke a smidge too seriously. “We’d likely hit a sewage line.”

Valex looked at the couple, who were acting more frigid towards each other than usual, and fretted about their malodorous moods. “M-Maybe we should find an inn for the night and try again tomorrow?”

Metokai shook her head. “We still have a few hours until our glamours expire, and there’s still daylight. Let’s keep looking a little longer.”

The others grunted agreement and trudged along, continuing the fruitless search.

As the White Moon set and the glamour time limit approached, the four gave up for the day and found a nondescript inn. They rented a room with four beds, shuffled inside and locked the door, and finally released the glamour spells they’d been maintaining for nearly five hours. Everyone (except Rixu) gasped loudly, their relief palpable, as they returned to their natural demonic bodies.

“Uuuuu…” Valex said, stroking her fox ears lovingly. “I never realized how much I missed these things until they were gone. How did I ever survive with tiny, not-fluffy, not-movable, boring human ears?”

“Oy,” Rixu objected, his boring human ears twitching slightly.

Nyze nodded her assent as she wriggled around on the floor, coiling and uncoiling her snake tail. “I know, right? I’ve only been a lamia for, what, two months now? Yet I already feel such discomfort going back to human feet. They’re so… tiny and fragile and unstable. Blech!”

“Hey!” Rixu protested, curling and uncurling his toes, which were presently sheathed in protective devices known as a ‘boots’ to prevent breakage.

Metokai clicked and clacked her hooves on the earthen floor, looking for a moment like she was doing a tiny Riverdance. “I’ll never understand the human propensity for walking around on soft, fleshy appendages. Hooves are much sturdier. And human ankle joins are so LOW! Plantigrade feet are a sin against evolution and common sense alike.”

“C’MON!” Rixu grumbled, stamping his feet so hard he nearly twisted his ankle. “I’m RIGHT HERE!”

The three turned to look towards their token human friend and grinned in unison. “So, Rixu…” Nyze began.

He rolled his eyes. “Here it comes…”

“As the only one of us who doesn’t need a glamour to go outside…” she continued.

“We truly appreciate your service…” Valex added, her tail swishing eagerly.

“Please understand, you’re the only logical choice…” Metokai reasoned.

“TO GO OUT AND GRAB US DINNER!” the three chorused in unison.

Rixu slumped over, defeated in both body and soul. “Fiiiiiiiine. Gods, the things I put up with from you three...”

******

As Rixu braved the streets once more in search of take-out, Valex excused herself to the bathroom for a long soak; since her gender apotheosis, the energetic foxkin had become quite enthusiastic for long baths accompanied by scented oils and soothing salts, to the point where she often resembled a fox-raisin afterwards. Still, nobody begrudged her the indulgence.

That left Nyze and Metokai alone together in the inn room, without much to do except fidget. An awkward silence would have descended, except…

“Okay!” Nyze said, clapping her hands together and causing Metokai to jump a bit. “Before some kind of awkward silence descends, I’m going to apologize!”

Metokai looked up at Nyze and tilted her head to the side a bit. “Pardon, serpent?”

“For that little tiff earlier, I mean.” Nyze continued, pressing her hands together in front of her face and bowing her head as if in prayer. “I realize you were just trying to help that homeless man, and I shouldn’t have objected so strongly.”

“You weren’t…” Metokai began.

Nyze wasn’t finished. “I was too dense to realize this until afterwards, but you were just acting in line with your demonic values! Demons are brash and forthright and always take the most direct course of action! You saw someone in trouble and immediately ran in to help, because that’s the demon way of doing things, and I should have been more respectful of that!”

“You’re a…”

Nyze kept steaming along like a runaway train. “And I know that I’m a demon now too and I should really try to start thinking that way, but I still have a lot of old human bullshit to unlearn. It can be hard sometimes, okay? I’m doing my best but sometime values clash and we wind up butting heads! But I don’t WANT to butt heads with you, Metokai, and not just because you have horns! I care about you and don’t want to do anything to alienate you and I…”

“SERPENT!” Metokai shouted. Nyze clamped her jaw shut and looked at the baphomet guiltily.

Metokai sighed and pressed two fingers to her temple. “For Skel’s sake, give me a chance to respond at least. Let me address your points in the order which you… sprayed them at me. Firstly, I’m not mad about your objection to my actions. You raised a good point, and I’m a firm believer that if someone has a good point they should not hesitate to express it. Healthy and respectful debate from people acting in good faith is essential to reaching compromises that satisfy everyone.”

“…Really?” Nyze said, eyes widening to doe-like levels.

“Really. Secondly, kindness towards one’s fellows is not an exclusively demonic virtue. Rixu is also wont to offer assistance to any needy soul he encounters, without precursor or price. That very selflessness is why he’s accompanying us on this journey as emotional support for Valex, even though he’d much rather be wasting away in a guard tower somewhere remote and snowy. Humans and demons alike are capable of empathy and good works.”

“That’s… that’s true…” Nyze conceded, feeling bad she’d implied human values were universally inhumane.

“Thirdly, Nyze, we’ve only known each other for a short time, but I still consider you my foremost rival and a very good friend. I’ve sparred and trained with you daily, and watched your skills in battle flourish as a result. And you, in turn, have served as a catalyst to further my foolish infatuation with the Demon Lord, and even supported my clumsy, inebriated attempts at wooing her. We are comrades, you and I, and the High General would never renege on such a valuable relationship because of a minor disagreement. If that answer does not satisfy you, we can always clear the air with mortal combat once we reach somewhere isolated.”

Nyze blinked, eyes limpid. “S-So you’re not mad at me?”

Metokai shook her head. “Not in the least, serpent.”

“YAY!” Nyze exclaimed, and swept Metokai into a tight hug. The baphomet grunted displeasure, but not too loudly, and gave up protesting as the lamia coiled tightly around her.

When Rixu returned with meat dumplings some half-hour later, he found Nyze and Metokai cheerfully arguing about frivolous bullshit, as they usually did, and a softly smiling Valex watching them while drying her hair with wind magic. As he looked upon the cadre of demons, a warm smile lifted the corner of his cheeks.

******

After finishing up yet another tower of paperwork nearly as tall as she was, Nilah tiredly shuffled out of her office and towards the exit of the Crucible.

“Ugh…” she grumbled as her sore knees popped from suddenly being called upon after a long period of inactivity. “Why did I ever take that job as headmistress anyway? It’s nothing but paperwork. Boring, boring paperwork. How I long for a good, rousing battle…”

Her smarting knees reminded her that, regrettably, her battling days were mostly behind her. As a woman in her sixties, she’d long ago learned to listen carefully when her body spoke, through its prolific chorus of creaks, groans, aches, pains and rashes. Gritting her teeth, she lurched along her usual path, making a quick stop at the cafeteria before heading out into the darkened streets of Lyzikanth.

There were no Moons out tonight, a relative cosmic rarity relegated to only two or three occurrences a year, meaning the distant pinpricks of worldlight had full dominion of the sky. Nilah stopped to drink in the sight for a moment, before shuffling along on her usual winding route home. She stopped at a dozen street corners, handing the vagrants she ran across a loaf or two of the bread she’d taken from the cafeteria.

Nilah made a regular habit of this. The Crucible’s chefs usually had surplus bread at the end of the day, and she instructed them to leave it aside so she could distribute it to the homeless on her way home. This was partially due to charity… after her retirement from assassin work, Nilah didn’t hesitate to build up as much goodwill as she could, partially out of guilt for her dark past… but also because she felt it best to have as many friends as she could surrounding her, lest the Church come after Xennia one day. There was no indication they would, but Nilah was the paranoid type.

So paranoid, in fact, that her skin crawled when she saw that Baryoniz, one of her regulars, wasn’t on his usual corner. Life on the streets was tough, and many of the homeless met an unkindly fate at the hands of disease, starvation or worse. Nilah worriedly began to search the surrounding streets… only to find Baryoniz waving at her from the porch of a nearby inn.

She strode over as fast as her aching knees would allow, squinting at his silhouette lit up against the pink magelight of the inn’s interior. “Bary? What are you doing over there?”

“Nilah!” Bary said enthusiastically, greeting his friend with warmth. “I was waiting out here for you to make your rounds. You’ll never guess what happened today!” The old man was practically jumping for joy.

Nilah watched his sprightly movements with surprise. The poor man had (or used to have) a bad leg that precluded him from the military and adventuring work alike, and he didn’t have the education to seek a sedentary occupation. Shaper mages were expensive, beyond even Nilah’s comfortable salary, so she’d settled for bringing the fellow bread every evening to ensure he at least didn’t starve. Now, however, he was hopping about joyfully on a freshly healed leg.

“What happened, Bary?” Nilah asked, her elation mixed with confusion.

“This party of four weirdoes were wandering around the shopping district, and one of them… a tiny woman, only as tall as my hip… offered to heal me!”

If there was one thing Nilah was most suspicious of, it was great favors offered at no apparent cost. Too often, they bore a hidden price that was far too steep. “And she asked for nothing in return?”

“She didn’t! And what’s more, she gave me four gold pieces!” the man said excitedly. “Strange ones with no markings, but they spend as good as Church coin!”

Nilah’s eyes narrowed. She was happy for Bary, naturally, but also worried he’d become caught up in something far larger than he understood. People didn’t just walk around healing folk for free without an ulterior motive. She didn’t want to think the Church had located them after all these years and come to finish the destruction of the Tohkal family, but nobody else she knew of could throw around shaping magic like it was copper candy.

“Bary…” she said slowly, placing her hand on the man’s shoulders, “try to recall everything you know about these four strangers. Every detail, from their hair and eyes to their clothing and manner of speech.”

“Why come, Nilah?” he asked, confused.

“No reason. I just make a habit of knowing about anyone interesting who enters or leaves the town. These strangers sound VERY interesting,” Nilah said, with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.