Ryan glanced about the throne room as he tried to determine just how fucked he was.

Next to the throne stood a humanoid about ten feet tall with horns, hooves, a lizard-like tail, patches of fur, scales, feathers, mottled flesh, a scraggly beard, and glowing flame red eyes. It was holding the king by the throat in one hand. The king, as well as the half dozen other men scattered about the room, all appeared to be paralyzed. He glanced over his shoulder at the main doors only to find them closed with a red glowing magic circle sealing the entrance. A moment later he heard something heavy hit the doors. They didn't even budge. It was clear at this point, no help was coming.

The answer would appear to be: Very.

The demon smiled at the king and spoke sweetly, "Oh look. It's a child. Would you like me to tear it into shreds and make you watch?"

Ryan weighed his options and came to one conclusion, ~Stall.~ He stabbed a finger at the demon, "Hey!" It turned its face towards Ryan, morphing as it did to become something a bit more putrid and way more terrifying. Ryan paused as the visage before him derailed his train of thought, ~Damnit... I had a one liner.~

It politely called out to Ryan, "Do be a dear and wait a moment. I'll be with you shortly."

Ryan shouted out, "No! You... you... uh... put him down unharmed!" He folded his arms to try and look like he was confident and to be respected.

He failed.

The demon's tongue darted out from its mouth for a moment before it asked with a look of amusement, "And if I don't?"

Ryan thought to himself, ~Good question.~ as he slowly walked closer, "Well... you see..." A look of inspiration came upon Ryan as he started speaking more confidently, "I will simply tear out your heart and show it to you before you die." He put his arms on his hips and came to a halt at the bottom of the dais.

The demon gave Ryan a look that seemed to say, 'how cute.' It looked at the king, "One of yours?"

Ryan shouted, "Indeed!"

The King's eyes and the head of the demon snapped to look at Ryan, "I beg your pardon?"

Ryan looked off into the distance, blatantly snubbing the demon, "Yes, I am that guy's son. I am..." Ryan made a dramatic 'guts pose', "A Prince!"

The demon openly laughed and slowly lowered the king to the ground. It clicked his tongue and grinned at Ryan, "I heard he had a few of those. So tell me, are you a proper prince or one of his bastards?"

"I am prince Sukka'mi'dik"

The demon didn't even pause and with a flick of his hand, it hurled a spell at Ryan that wrapped him in crawling words. The red glowing inscription seeped into his skin and caused him to cry out for but a second, then silenced him as he became paralyzed. He was unable to do much beyond stand there and move his eyes. The demon turned back to the king, looking down at him, "Well. That stopped being amusing quickly. Now then... where... were... we?" He paused to gently caress the king's chin.

---

Ryan struggled to move, quickly determining the concept of range of motion no longer existed for him, ~Okay. Think. It's only affecting voluntary muscle groups... uh... he isn't maintaining it? He isn't... it's... fire and forget? Meaning... he sends... mana along WITH the spell! So if I can use up its mana...~ Ryan tried to disrupt the spell on him by expanding his own magical essence, but failed. He simply couldn't control the ebb and flow of his own mana while paralyzed. As he watched the demon caressing the king, he felt a pang of guilt, ~I'm never going to get to say I'm sorry.~

Ryan felt a growing resolve, ~No. Never again.~ He closed his eyes to focus his efforts inward, ~I can't over power the energy, so I need to redirect it. Can I ground it somehow? Wait...~ He thought back to his experiments to improve his mana absorption via acupuncture, ~I don't have the needles so let’s just...~ Normally you collect mana through breathing, but he had learned of other methods to heighten the speed of mana absorption. In the library he had found the method of opening up alternate points of collection. He’d been through acupuncture before when he was in Japan to help with his back pain, so it really wasn’t that much of a stretch to try it out on himself.

It was time to see if the test run was going to be enough.

He held his breath to force his body to absorb mana thru the rest of his body instead. He felt resistance. It was like trying to breathe through a hole in your neck. As he concentrated, the taste of copper pennies exploded in his mouth. He could feel the energies of the spell binding him and tapped into its mana. Abruptly, like popping a soap bubble, the spell holding him proved remarkably fragile and collapsed. Ryan slowly put his hand behind his back to reach for his ka-bar. Pulling the short blade out of his holster, he slowly crouched down to coil up, ~Only getting one shot at this.~ Pouring everything into speed, he leapt for the Demon, hoping said demon would be too busy gloating to notice.

Just as the demon was holding up a claw and about to take out one of the king's eyes, he noticed said eye dart to the right. In the same moment, he felt the onrush of a tremendous amount of killing intent. Dropping the king he stepped back and away, only narrowly avoiding taking a blade to the ear as Ryan flew past.

The demon stumbled back, actually surprised at this unexpected development. He spent the first few moments of the fight staggering and avoiding blows by blocking with his armored forearms. This little brat seemed to be everywhere and he honestly wasn't prepared for this unexpected ambush. The demon took a swipe, leaving an opening. With a bounce, Ryan jumped up on the throne, leaped into the air in a rather impressive forward half spin, and dropped down on the demon's back. Bringing his blade down into the demon's shoulder blades and directly into its neck, Ryan gleefully yelled, "Buh-bye!"

The demon let out a screech that was like nails on a chalkboard. It thrashed about, stumbling down the dais. Ryan held on, "For fuck's sake, DIE ALREADY!" and twisted the blade, causing the demon to screech again. It reached back and grabbed Ryan by the shoulder. Yanking him forward, it sent Ryan flipping through the air to skid across the throne room floor. Ryan tumbled and rolled to his feet, weapon at the ready. A large drop of black ichor collected on the underside, then dripped off the blade, falling to the floor.

The demon grabbed the wound with its left hand as it staggered, "My! My My my my MY!" The demon started to work its right arm as if he could just flex away the pain, "That. Really. STINGS!" Ryan's expression grew increasingly worried as the impossible unfolded before him. The demon rubbed at the wound until it stopped bleeding, "Right in the NECK! Oof! What a shot! Now, if you did that another... twenty times? Yes. About twenty times." The demon paused to crack his neck.

"I'd definitely start getting worried."