Chapter 59 - Honeypot
"Come, a taste of my sweet and you'll be unstoppable, little man," Val Caratrix smiled with ruby red lips, her pheromones operating at full blast, the fae's pupils turning crimson and very wide.
"As you wish, my queen," he muttered, and floated like a drone into the blood-red pool.
sinking below the surface, he would not emerge until the change was complete.
"Val, we Daario wants you to know that the Hero Guild is coming here. You are ordered not to allow Kenji Aztec to get in your way, kill him if you can," the shadow imp appeared like it always did, without warning, without a whisper.
Three greybearded Redcaps fell buzzing from the ceiling, long black scythes swinging, each of the three faster than an elf and deadlier than a wraith. Long needle-thin noses like mosquitos swung left and right as their scythes cut through only stone.
"Bzzz where is it?"
"Kill it bzzz"
"Find an- AH"
The third's shoulder exploded, Val flickering the gore from her hand.
"Idiots, get back above and don't you dare disturb mummy further!" Val hissed, the trio buzzing back into the branches. Red eyes and the sound of buzzing flickered to life above, the darkness a patchwork collection of red stars.
"I am so sorry about that, please don't tell Daario, those three will be punished."
"No need, I am untouchable to them," the imp spoke from behind her, turning suddenly Val felt a great unease. She hadn't seen him move, and couldn't feel his presence. Only see him, as if the creature was truly no more than a shadow. "How do you plan to defeat the Fae, it is Daario's opinion that they are a substantial force. Do you require assistance?"
"Demons for an emergency would be nice, but if all goes to plan there won't be a problem. After all, this is only the beginning," gesturing above her, she activated the enchantments on the room, a great golden tree filling the old castle, golden fruit large as a man dotting it's branches by the hundred. Each of the fruit held the shadowy form of a new Redcap, crimson eyes flaring through the sinewy caccoon they grew in, magical powers coming ever closer to awakening.
Then there was th fruits at the centre of the tree, red cacoons and a massive silver. Filled with Warrior's honey and royale jelly, their powers enough to make the regular Redcaps feel as pitiful as those insects the fae kept as pets.
And to think this was only one plantation of many.
"I will take the Far King for my own, and with my power from that moment on Gravitas will be unstoppable. Those materials I requested, how are they coming along?"
The shadow imp grinned, an odd thing for a shadow to do, and threw a Waykey.
Grasping it from the air Val turned it over an empty space. The demonic doors that appeared were crude, and swung open to reveal a cacophony of sound. Within a thousand demons work steel into scythes, scythes then dunked in horrid pools of dark power, only one in ten good enough to be magically enhanced with the soul of one of the smiths themselves.
"The rejects will be good enough for your common Redcaps, the soulscythes should be handed to your best warriors. If your regular Redcaps can cut stone with Fae steel, they will reap entire armies like wheat with soul infused darksteel."
Val's red lips pulled wide, long eyelashes fluttering, and the promise of the scale of murder that was to take place set her blood afire. She couldn't wait, she squirmed, wanting so desperately to start the carnage now, to unleash her swarm.
Just a little longer. She could wait a little longer, until everything was perfect.
But hot damn was she going to get off from this like never before.